


Every Day's Most Quiet Need

by tiltedsyllogism



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Clothing, Drinking, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Nontraditional relationships, Pining, Romance, Sex, The Adventurers Club, hats in particular, men's clothing, self-knowledge, the general indulgence of vices, the past didn't go anywhere, women's clothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 11:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13786137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiltedsyllogism/pseuds/tiltedsyllogism
Summary: Doctor Elizabeth Macmillan does not traffick in regrets. Hers is an exceptionally pleasurable and useful life, made complete (if it wasn’t before) by her dear friend Phryne’s return to Melbourne. And if Mac occasionally longs for a time before her friend became somehow distracted by the stiff shoe that is Inspector Jack Robinson— well, one must always endure some bad with the good. Any wise person knows this, and Mac has earned her share of wisdom.She’s wrong about all of it, of course. And maybe there are worse things than being wrong.





	Every Day's Most Quiet Need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [breathedout](https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/gifts).



> Written for the 2017(!) Fandom Trumps Hate auction, for a magnificent prompt from breathedout, who also betaed. It has been a long road, but it's been a joy and a challenge unlike any other and I am so grateful. thanks, hbbo xxxx
> 
> Australia-picking and SPAG patrol by MarjaAkhmatova, whose help I was lucky enough to win in the 2018 FTH auction. 
> 
> This story (perhaps surprisingly, given the tags) is canon-compliant, and spans roughly from mid-November 1928 (circa Blood and Circuses) until May 1929 (in the neighborhood of Dead Air.) I am deeply grateful to foxspirit1928’s timeline posts on tumblr, which I referred to frequently while writing. If you’re looking for canon nods, you’ll see more or less in-the-moment references to _King Memses’ Curse, Murder Most Scandalous, Death Comes Knocking, Blood at the Wheel, the Blood of Juana the Mad,_ and _Death on the Vine._
> 
> Title taken from Elizabeth Barrett Browning's [Sonnet 43.](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/how-do-i-love-thee-sonnet-43)

~*~*~*~

“An entire day without leaving the house!” Mac exclaimed, half-mocking. “As I live and breathe, is the Honourable Miss Fisher finally showing her age?”

“Hardly. I was asleep until nearly two.” Phryne held out her glass. “Top me up while you’re there, will you?”

“Another late evening, I take it.” Mac refreshed her friend’s brandy, set her own back down on the gorgeous little carved table, and slung herself back across the armchair. 

“Do you mean last night or tonight?” An impudent little bob of the head set Phryne’s earrings sparkling. She was in full war-paint, the way she always was these days, and turned out in some sort of pale fluttering gossamer thing trimmed in blood-red feathers, with a little feathered hat to match. Rather a production for a day spent at home, Mac thought, even for Phryne. Then again, there was the home itself to consider: it was the sort of residence where one very well might turn out to the tips simply to lounge about and have drinks brought to one by household staff and obliging friends.

“Do I want to hear the details of this particular round of frolicking?”

“You know I don’t make it a habit to keep secrets from you.”

“’Course not,” Mac returned mildly. “You’re all too happy to catch me up on all your various brushes with death after the fact.”

“Dear Mac, that’s not _quite_ fair. Who’s getting old now? A little sprinkling of danger never used to ruffle you.” Phryne smiled teasingly.

“All right, maybe not death as such, just the odd knife being flung at your…”

“Oh, that hardly counts. He was a trained professional.” Phryne fluttered her eyes at the recollection. “And besides, you were my first call in that Zionist bookshop affair…”

“…Once you needed an expert chemist…” Mac put in.

“…And a great help, which is why you know I will always call you. And besides.” Phryne set down her glass aimed at Mac an expression that would have sat equally well, if perhaps less disarmingly, on the countenance of a certain Mrs. Stanley. “It’s not as if you have been a paragon of forthright disclosure, Doctor Macmillan.”

Which was a fair and palpable hit, Mac supposed, in light of everything with Daisy. The girl had been dead more than two days, and Phryne investigating nearly that whole time, before Mac had resolved to make a clean breast of it, and in the end Dot had been the one to tell the tale. Phryne had been magnificent about the whole matter—that she should find Gaskin’s murderer was practically to be expected, given her exploits of the past few months, but she had passed nearly all of her evenings of the following weeks at Mac’s flat, a steady presence who asked no questions but took as they came whatever reminisces Mac discovered at the bottom of her glass. 

It had been an affair to occupy the present, nothing more—Daisy had been a featherweight soul as long as Mac had known her, full of fun and determined not to let hardship teach her anything—but Mac had been excessively fond of the girl, and full of hopes for her. The effect was an odd, lopsided sort of grief, and a steadfast rock in that strange-burning storm was Phryne, who sat by with not a word of blame for Mac for never having opened her heart heretofore. This most mild admonition was the first she had laid at Mac’s door, and Mac could hardly begrudge her. Still, it was good to know that the omission had nettled her friend, after all. After a passage of nearly three weeks, Mac had almost given up wondering. 

“This was your circus friend you were out with last night?” No peace offering like a change of subject.

Phryne gave a blissful sigh. “Samson. Oh Mac, it was such a dazzling evening. He took me to this little dance hall he likes to visit when he’s in Melbourne, it was utterly charming.”

“Which one was it?” Mac drained her brandy, half-stood in pursuit of another, and quickly ruled against. The last one had apparently been half a drink too many, and the best course for the moment to call the armchair home for a bit longer.

“H’m, I don’t think you would know it,” said Phryne, who fortunately had been refreshing her own drink and had not observed her friend’s failed campaign into the world of the vertical. “Caters to a very particular clientele.”

“Circus people?” 

“Not exactly.” Phryne sipped her drink demurely. “Men who… prefer their own kind.”

“Oh, I see.” Mac grinned. “And how did you acquit yourself, in those rarefied environs?”

“Quite well, I think?” Phryne smiled back. “Richard certainly thought so.”

Mac crowed out a laugh. “Well, if any woman could snare herself an evening’s company at that sort of club, my money would be on you.”

“Wise choice,” Phryne replied, her voice a brandied sparkle. 

“I’m surprised you’re not back tonight for more.”

“Oh, it was fun, but I wouldn’t go without Sam.” Mac tipped her head inquiringly. “They pushed off for Queenscliff this afternoon. He stopped in just….” Phryne trailed off mid-sentence and looked toward the entryway. “What is it, Mister Butler?”

“Inspector Jack Robinson to see you, ma’am,” came that man’s voice, and behind his figure in the entryway drew up the silhouette of another, composed all of crisp, closed lines.

“Jack!” said Phryne warmly, rising to her feet, as the silhouette passed into colour in the warm, dim light of the parlour. Mac stood too, and managed not to wobble.

“Miss Fisher.” The Inspector bowed his head to Phryne, and then to Mac, in perfect courtesy. “Doctor Macmillan.”

“Evening, Inspector,” Mac replied, civilly enough, because she might be drunk but she wasn’t a complete fool.

“Won’t you please come in,” Phryne said brightly, walking toward him with arms extended. 

“Thank you,” the Inspector said stiffly. “But I’m… I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Oh, it’s not interruption, we’re both delighted to see you.” Phryne turned a radiant face back toward Mac. “Aren’t we, Mac?”

“It’s no trouble, Inspector, I was on my way out.”

Phryne’s smile flagged. “You’re leaving? It’s barely nine o’clock!” Behind her shoulder, the Inspector stood stiff as a board in the finely-cut suit some clever clerk had chosen for him, hat off and studying the rug.

“Nothing for it. Early morning at the hospital. Today _and_ tomorrow.” Her tone might have told more than she meant to allow, so Mac worked up a grin to season it with. “Besides, I think you’ll find I’ve done a full evening’s worth of damage to your decanter.”

Phryne offered an affectionate half-frown. “I suppose I’ll allow it. Saving lives can be exhausting.” 

“And you would know,” Mac returned. Phryne nodded, a small smile blooming. 

And there was the Inspector, still behind her, still staring at the rug. And well he might—it was an interesting pattern, he might learn a few things, Mac thought sourly.

“I’ll see you soon, darling.” Phryne brushed a kiss on her cheek as Mac turned for the door.

Mister Butler always knew, somehow, and he met her at the entry of the parlour with her hat. “Will you be all right getting home, Doctor Macmillan?”

“I’ll be fine, thanks. Good night, Mister Butler.”

“Good night, Doctor.” He bowed and withdrew.

“Good night, Doctor.” Mac turned back into the parlor and saw the Inspector, hat now perched on the table by the decanter, looking back after her. Mac wondered, for a vertiginous half-second, whether Mister Butler’s words had conjured some sort of charm, unlocked an echo from this stiff cutout of a man too dull to produce words of his own. But the bright, serious eyes were the same as when they had talked chemical formulae in that poor young Jew’s bedroom laboratory, and the same as when he had clapped her into the police station cell.

“Good night, Inspector,” she replied, and opened the door.

 

~*~*~*~

 

It had been half a dozen years since Mac had taken a meal at the Palm entirely for pleasure. Most of the girls in the Adventurers Club who could afford it for themselves had faster tastes, and Mac herself couldn’t afford to let word get round among the ones who couldn’t. It was a favourite of Mrs. Stanley’s, which meant that Mac dined there regularly with the hospital board, but that was hardly a pleasant affair. On those evenings, Mac ordered the duck for the entree and at least two whiskey sours to see her through to it. But today was more a Gin Rickey sort of day, and Mac was content to sip slowly while she browsed the paper.

Phryne had wanted to meet for lunch, which meant that the room was at its best: all the light came streaming in from the outside, the old windows throwing liquid gleams onto the table silver through their antique glaze. Most people thought the old crystal chandeliers quite terrific, but Mac found the effect grim, and preferred a sunlit backdrop for the quiet hum of conversation from neighbouring tables.

The maître d’hôtel’s voice rose in pleasure, and Mac looked up from her newspaper. And there it was, just as she expected: all eyes turning to Phryne Fisher as she swanned into the dining room in fine linen trousers and some splendid absurdity of a coat. People had looked at Phryne that way as long as Mac had known her—before she came into money and started dressing to match—but in their salad days, it had required a bit more public exertion on Phryne’s part to get people to take notice in the first place. The current article was cool as a cucumber, looking for all the world as if the noise would just slide right off of her as she glided serenely by.

Phryne caught her eye across the dining room and crossed the room, beaming. Mac only nodded over the edge of the paper as she folded it away, but the thought occurred that perhaps it wasn’t entirely the fault of the chandeliers that those board dinners seemed so dim.

“Hello, dear,” Mac said, rising to kiss her friend’s cheek. “You look a perfect vision.”

“And here you are, dashing as ever.” Phryne arranged herself in the seat opposite. “I have learned that if I’m to be seen with you about town, I mustn’t be shown up.”

Mac scoffed, affectionate. “That would be the day. So what does Miss Fisher recommend at the Palm? Something light, mind. I’m lecturing at the college at three and I can hardly afford to sleep at the podium.”

“What’s the lecture about?”

“Basic anatomy.” Mac shook her head. “Don’t let’s discuss it any more, I’m bored already. Tell me what the swells are eating.” 

“I’ve really no idea,” said Phryne. “I realized just the other day that I haven’t been here since before the war.” 

“Is that right?” Mac counted back the months to the day she had met Phryne at the dock. 

“I know, I can hardly believe it myself. It’s been such a whirlwind I’ve hardly had time for a simple meal. So I’m afraid I’m no help at all as regards the menu. Although—” Phryne leaned in, conspiratorial “—Lin did tell me once that the perch in brown butter is quite excellent.”

“Lin?”

“The importer. Silks,” she added, by way of clarification.

Mac nodded. “A gentleman of taste, then. Good enough.” 

“You will have another drink, won’t you?” Phryne asked, as she signalled for the waiter.

Mac grunted assent. “It’s an anatomy lecture, not surgery.”

“Two perches, and two more of those as well,” Phryne told the waiter, gesturing at Mac’s glass. “Mine with whiskey, please.”

Mac raised her eyebrows after the waiter had departed. “You’re a saucy one.”

“Oh hush, it’s my first of the day. Besides, nobody will be learning anatomy from me today.”

“Not in lecture format, anyhow.” Mac chuckled, draining the last of her drink just in time to accept the next one. “Shall we toast your triumphant return to an old haunt, after a hiatus of….”

Phryne leaned over and clinked her glass against Mac’s. “Oh, let’s not count. One doesn’t mind being a woman of a certain age, but one prefers not to dwell on it too precisely.”

“And now you sound like Mrs. Thorndale.”

“Oh, no!” At the thought of her old employer, Phryne gave an expansive laugh that drifted off into a fond smile. “I had almost forgotten. She took us here all the time, didn’t she?”

“She took _you_ here all the time,” Mac corrected. “Me, only the once. As was fitting,” she hastened to add: she was not in the slightest resentful, but meant only to be precise. “It was kind of her to include your friend, even that once.”

Phryne tapped the edge of her glass with her finger, as she always did when trying to recall something. “No, I’m sure we were here at least twice.”

Mac raised an eyebrow. “She wasn’t with us that second time, don’t you remember?”

Phryne’s face, in so many ways unreadable, showed clearly the movements of her mind as the pieces of memory came back together. “It was here!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I had quite forgotten. This was our fancy supper, wasn’t it? Well, now I’m quite embarrassed. Although—” she turned her sparkling eyes on Mac “—the dinner itself was hardly the point.”

“True enough,” Mac replied, and true it was in retrospect, though it hadn’t seemed so at the time. Mrs. Thorndale had been out of town—in Canberra to visit a sister who disliked Phryne, on account of which the latter had remained behind—and the entire point, so it had seemed then, was to take themselves to an elegant dinner and pretend they belonged. Mac was certain they had fooled nobody, festooned in borrowed finery and giggling madly all the while, but very grand and grown-up they had felt at the time. 

“It’s almost hard to believe that was us,” said Phryne.

“D’you think so?” Mac said mildly.

Phryne turned her eyes upward to the chandelier, then back to her friend. “Not really, no,” she allowed. “I suppose it is full circle, you and me back here.” She took a demure sip. “All grown up.”

Mac smiled at her friend across the gilded air and said nothing. It had been fourteen years—even if she wasn’t to say it out loud—and she and Phryne were back at the Palm, just the two of them. Not an item in Mrs. Thorndale’s closet could have outshone Phryne’s linen and fresco. And Mac herself—less brimful with optimism, perhaps, than the awkward handful of flesh who had been awestruck at her first meal here, trying not to stare at the fixtures as Mrs. Thorndale looked on indulgently and Phryne pretended to do the same to mask her own awe. But like her friend, she was better costumed—and better fitted, as well, to a cooler outlook on this ragged-edged and unsparing world. They had been long, those years in between, but oh, how each of them had grown. The moment was rich and full, and there were no words that were just enough.

They sat in companionable silence until their plates appeared a few minutes later. The perch was excellent, and the dilled roasted potatoes a splendid match. 

“Well, we shan’t be waiting another four months, I can tell you that,” Phryne remarked, as she speared her last piece of potato. “Mister Butler is a man without flaw, but his culinary instincts tend toward creamy potatoes, rather than crisp. These do make a nice change.”

“I’m sure he would roast potatoes if you asked him.”

Phryne frowned. “I hate to interfere with the work of an artist.”

“H’m.” Mac took a small nip of her drink, hoping to stretch it to the end of the meal. “Not to poke a sore spot—” Phryne scoffed— “but I do think a woman of a certain age should be able to eat what she likes at her birthday party. That’s coming up, isn’t it?”

“Yes, a week from Friday.” Phryne set down her glass and then picked it up again.

“Much obliged for the invitation, I’m sure.”

Phryne shook her head. “Don’t be absurd, of course you’ll be invited. I just need to ask Dot to begin making arrangements.”

“You haven’t started yet?” That was surprising. Mac shot her friend a cocky grin. “All right, who are you, and why have you abducted Miss Phryne Fisher, the most dedicated lover of parties ever to set foot upon Australian soil?”

Phryne’s smile was a quick and shallow thing, too faint to mask its author’s disquiet. Mac caught the thread at the tail and, following it backward, discovered that Phryne had failed to meet her eyes for some moments. Feeling her own good humour fall away under the cloud of a new intuition, she set down her glass and leaned forward.

“What’s been happening, darling? You look positively rattled.”

“It’s nothing important.” Phryne smiled again, a bit more successfully, and fluttered a careless hand. “Nothing to worry about, just an old case that wasn’t quite finished. It’s come back, and a bit sideways.” She took a fortifying pull of her drink. “But it will all be cleared up soon.”

“Maybe I can help.”

“Thank you, but it’s really nothing,” Phryne said firmly, in a voice that would have fooled anyone who didn’t remember her before, from the days when she wore cotton dresses and spent her evenings practicing for silk. “Jack and I have the matter well in hand between us.”

The dark clutch in Mac’s insides took a turn in a new and sour direction. She picked up her glass and composed herself carefully in her seat. “I suppose you’ll regale me with all the details once it’s over.”

Phryne’s mouth was a mocking curve. “Why Mac, you’re _not_ jealous.”

Well. If Phryne thought it a thing to joke about, that was something. Mac cranked out a wry grin. “Oh no, it’s perfectly fine. Who would want to investigate crimes when they could be shut up in a lecture hall with the youthful cream of Australia’s best minds?”

“You do also save lives at the hospital,” Phryne put in. “I know that’s a bit dull, but it builds character. Besides,” she gave Mac the saucy smile she had perfected back before the war. “Melbourne can hardly afford to have you running loose on the streets at all hours. Think what might happen.”

“Quite true,” Mac replied. “No wonder the local constabulary are concerned.”

“Goodness, yes. It’s a good thing Doctor Macmillan selflessly devotes herself to the welfare of others, or the streets would overflow with jilted husbands.” Phryne clasped her hands suddenly. “That reminds me, I had clean forgotten. I had the most delicious bit of gossip off of Aunt Prudence, and you’re just the one to appreciate it. It turns out that the Honourable Mister Panhalling on the Hospital Board has gotten into something of a tangle with his wife’s lover…..”

Mac stole a glance at the clock as Phryne chattered on. She would have to leave soon, but there was time for this story, and perhaps the next one. Of the worrisome old case there would be no word, she well knew. That was now Inspector Robinson’s watch; on her oldest friend Phryne bestowed only the honour of frivolity.

There was no such thing as perfect circles, not in a world where you could only go forward. Of course Mac knew that. She smiled at Phryne, who was mid-anecdote and pausing for effect, and finished her drink.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Dancing had been the order of the day, when Phryne issued the invitation: or, to be particular, a sedentary and well-fortified spectator event. Mac was of an organization that took to one-step and foxtrot like a fish to water, but she preferred to take her tango from the sidelines, preferably with brandy in hand.

Phryne excelled at dancing, just as she excelled at everything that involved being looked at; it was with unmixed pleasure that Mac watched her move across the drawing room floor with Carlos, the newest pedagogical assignation. He was a prize article of the masculine type, and moved even more beautifully than Phryne.

The music ended, and Phryne dipped an elaborate curtsy to her dance partner over Mac’s applause and the scratching of the end of the record.

“Oh Carlos, that was magnificent,” Phryne declared, voice bright with exertion as she dropped to the couch and smiled at her friend. Mac winked at her, then rose to fix her friend a refreshment and to tend to the record player.

“Very good, Miss Phryne,” Carlos replied gallantly. “Do you wish we will practice together more?”

“I certainly do! Mm, thank you.” Phryne accepted the proffered drink and set the half-empty glass down, a bit hard, on the table. “I’ve been wanting to revive my tango for ages, and you’re just the man to help me do it. Don’t you think, Mac?”

Mac nodded. “Definitely.”

Phryne turned back to Carlos. “There you have it. You have passed your trials. Shall we continue?”

Carlos bowed. “It would be my pleasure.” 

“Excellent. Mister Butler will ’phone you to make arrangements.”

Carlos smiled, then dropped to one knee by the couch to take Phryne’s hand and kiss it. “Until then, Miss Fisher,” he murmured warmly. 

Phryne’s eyelids dropped, and with them dropped the aura of warmth that she was casting, until it was wide enough for only two. “Of course, there’s no need to rush away just yet,” she said, in the low soft voice that Mac was always trying to forget. “Perhaps you have an hour now to help me with my…. form?”

“Only too happy, Miss,” Carlos purred—and if ever Mac had thought such feline language was metaphorical, she was now firmly set to rights on the matter. It was in like feline fashion that Phryne was the next moment on her feet, following Carlos out of the room as he drew her by the hand he had kissed and not released. 

Phryne’s glossy hair, her fluid grace, her white arms. Her mouth as she shaped the words “back later” over the shoulder of her brocade jacket before leading Carlos up the stairs.

They were legion, and she strove valiantly to forget them. She was an old soldier, but forgetting was not always possible. Mac’s glass was empty, but Phryne’s was not, and well did she know from past afternoons that “later” might be much later. There was comfort in the heat of the brandy as it touched her lips, its predictable burn down her throat, and in the low burn of other predictable things. Carlos was exactly Phryne’s sort, after all—unlike the stiff slab of respectability that had caught her eye of late. Mac knew the score here, at least.

She had just about finished the drink, and was weighing the merits of a further instalment against those of a quiet departure, when Jane came in from the dining room. 

“Doctor Mac!” she chirped, her face alight. 

“Hello, sweetheart.” Mac stood and held out her arms, and Jane trotted over, hair bows bouncing. 

“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Jane declared, flinging her arms around Mac’s waist. “I didn’t even know you were here. Where’s Miss Phryne?”

Mac hesitated. She was hardly a figure of responsibility, but ever since Jane had expressed an interest in taking up medicine some day, Mac had set herself to nurturing the child’s scientific instincts. Part of that meant giving her the truth bloody and unsugared, a trust she was loath to break. But Jane was a bit young to know the full tale of her fosterer’s antics, and what prior acquaintance Jane might have had with the ways of nature was wholly unknown to her. 

“She’s upstairs with the dance teacher,” was the final formulation of choice.

“Oh, I didn’t know he was still here.” Jane had noticed her hesitation, and now looked up at Mac with very bright eyes. “Do you like him, Doctor Mac?”

“I’ve only just met him,” replied Mac.

Jane dropped onto the couch, and Mac sat back down next to her. “But do you think he has good intentions?” 

Mac frowned, feeling her way for the warp to explain this strange weft. Surely Jane was not hoping for marriage. “I think he wishes her very well,” she said at last.

Jane tugged at the lace cuff of her dress. “You don’t think he wants to hurt any of us, do you?”

It was sheer surprise that pushed out a coarse-barked laugh. “Honestly, darling, I doubt there’s a thing further from his mind.”

“That’s good.” Jane’s face softened into a smile. “I know it’s foolish, but it still makes me nervous when there are people in the house and Bert and Cec aren’t around.” 

Mac frowned, and Jane glanced up in alarm. “Oh no, not you, Doctor Mac. I don’t mind friends. It’s only strangers.”

“No of course not, Janey, that’s fine.” Mac patted the girl’s cheek absently as she cast about for the right words. It wouldn’t do any good to alarm Jane, but perhaps there was something afoot that Phryne ought to know about. “Tell me, Jane, have there been any, ah, strangers hanging about trying to get in?” 

“Only the one, but he did get in.” Jane shivered. “It feels so awful now, after everything that’s happened. But the worst of it was that he was so nice, that first night. I thought he was really nice.”

“Who, darling?” Mac asked, through the dull thud of blood in her throat.

“Murdoch Foyle,” said Jane.

Two seconds or ten, or twenty it may have been, until the roar of silence subsided and Mac could again hear Jane’s voice. 

“… the engagement party. Miss Phryne said it all would have happened anyway, and I’m not to blame. Inspector Robinson said so too, though he said I must be more careful.” 

“Inspector Robinson,” Mac repeated blankly.

“And Dot too, of course. I sometimes think she scolds too much, but I wish she’d scolded more, instead of just crying.” Jane clutched at her own elbows, as if for comfort. “I suppose that’s the good thing about being scared. It’s easy to be careful. Miss Phryne isn’t scared of anything, though.”

“No, she certainly isn’t,” said Mac. “When… when was this, Jane?”

The girl stared at her blankly. “It was almost three weeks ago. Don’t you remember? You were there.” Mac’s confusion must have shown, for Jane continued: “at Miss Phryne’s birthday party! We’d only just got back that afternoon.” 

It could not, must not, be let out in front of Jane, so she pressed it all down. “Yes, I remember now,” Mac said calmly, very calmly.

Jane seemed relieved that Mac had recovered herself. “Anyhow, Dot says I’m not to talk about it too much, it’s bad luck. So let’s talk about happier things instead. Are you staying to dinner?” And, at Mac’s hesitation: “I can tell Mister Butler, if Miss Phryne hasn’t already. I know she would like it.”

“I’m afraid not.” She patted the girl’s shoulder and pushed herself up from the chaise longue. “But another night soon.” Firm and cool was her manner as she walked to the vestibule, and it was labour enough that she only remembered to turn back to Jane when she reached the door. “It was lovely to see you,” she said.

“Goodbye!” Jane returned. “I hope I see you again soon.”

There would be too much food on the table, for Phryne had already ordered dinner, with the expectation that Mac would stay. But Mac couldn’t bear fools, least of all herself. And a fool she had been, that night, cutting up like a perfect idiot, in complete blind innocence of the fact that half the people present had nearly lost their lives only hours before. That party had been the first time she had really let herself go since Daisy, and it would have been easy enough to wait a bit longer, if only she had known. If only Phryne had told her anything.

This rage was kin to the old one, from more than thirteen years ago, the day that Phryne had abruptly announced that she had enlisted in the nurses’ corps. Quite an incandescent fight that had been, at the end of which Phryne had still refused to see the difference between herself and a trained doctor. It was one thing for a person with badly needed skills to run the risk of going near the battlefield, particularly if that person already knew what death looked like up close, and knew how to take precautions. Mac had gone into service with open eyes. She wasn’t just a frivolous idiot with a hero complex.

That rage had travelled with her all the way to the German front and back again, and had continued to simmer in the background, however she tried to quench it. This new complement, however, was fresh, and liberally sauced with her own foolishness.

To hell with dinner at Phryne’s. To hell with Phryne. Mac hailed a cab and directed the driver to the Adventurers’ Club. It had been nearly a week since her last game of billiards, and there was always a friendly crowd on Wednesdays. Perhaps Sybylla would be there, Mac thought. Sybylla was a lively girl who took up more than her proper share of space (rather like some others Mac could think of) but she was a great deal of fun, and she adored Mac without seeming to expect anything the next morning. That suited Mac just fine.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Mac was in surgery when the Constable called, and she took the message as she was wiping blood off of her hands. No small matter it was to leave the ward mid-morning—and for some unknown police business, no less—but Sister Constance assured her that she could be spared for a few hours to assist the police, and that the heavy work of the day had already left its traces on her surgical apron.

Quite naturally, it was Inspector Robinson who emerged when Mac rang the desk bell in the empty station hall.

“I’m here to see Constable Collins,” she said, in a brisk attempt at hauteur. Well enough resigned she was to seeing him at Phryne’s house, or at the morgue when he and Phryne called on her professional skills. But to see him in the very building where he had kept her prisoner, in the very aftermath of Daisy’s murder, was quite another matter.

“You’re here for me, actually,” the Inspector returned. “We’ve got a suspect in lockup for another case, and Collins—” he pointed a thumb behind him in an all-too-familiar direction “—is on guard duty.” 

“And you were hoping to guard _my_ cell yourself,” Mac said dryly.

“I’m afraid the position of murder suspect has been filled for the moment,” Inspector Robinson replied. “Besides, you seem a better fit for the role of doctor-chemist.”

Mac folded her arms. “I’m listening.”

The Inspector inclined his head toward the back hallway. Mac nodded, and he lifted the counter flap to let her back behind the desk. She followed him to his office, a predictably barren and shipshape square of space, and seated herself at the chair in front of the desk.

Inspector Robinson remained standing. His hands were in the pockets of his camel coat, disturbing its lines not a whit, which was a keen trick: Mac wondered what sort of fabric it was.

“A gentleman died last night after drinking a concoction called ‘virgins’ tears.’”

Mac blinked. “That’s not a vintage I’m familiar with.”

“Nor am I, which is why it seemed best to consult an expert. We recovered the phial he drank from, which still contains some of the so-called virgins’ tears, and we’re hoping you can help us determine what it is and whether it played a role in his death.”

“This is becoming a familiar story,” Mac said.

The Inspector’s back went minutely taut. “Sorry to trouble you,” he said stiffly.

“No trouble,” Mac returned mildly. “That’s not a no. I’m happy to help. Chemical analysis is certainly easier than an autopsy.” The inspector’s impassive mask stayed in place, but she could feel him relax. An impressive equanimity. “Still, it seems like you need this sort of work on a fairly regular basis, is all. It might not be a bad idea to keep somebody on retainer.”

“I’ll talk to the Commissioner about arranging for some kind of status or compensation,” Inspector said. “In the meantime, please accept the official gratitude of the Melbourne Police Department.”

Not a trace of a smile, even in his eyes, yet somehow Mac caught the glimmer of it. “I’ll save that for the scrapbook,” she said, likewise sombre, testing.

“Front page, I would imagine.” He nodded minutely, as if this were only just, and all in a rush Mac liked him very much.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself. What makes you think you know the half of it?”

The Inspector nodded again, curtly. “Fair point. I stand corrected. I’m sure a doctor and an all-around exemplary citizen has many honours to boast of.”

Mac cracked first—a small, sideways grin—but it was an honourable defeat. “No need to call names, Inspector. Just the ordinary dissolute article—” she leaned back in her chair “—but I can occasionally be dragooned into doing my bit. Now where is this phial? I presume you want me to run chemical tests on it, not drink it myself.”

Inspector Robinson released a small shade of a smile in return and sat down at his desk. “Just the lab tests, please. I prefer to stay in Miss Fisher’s good graces.”

“And keep your office neat,” Mac added.

“That should go without saying.”

“Just making sure. I’m not one to begrudge a dedicated public servant a bit of above and beyond.”

“That role has been filled by Miss Fisher, I’m afraid,” Inspector Robinson said.

“That is her style,” replied Mac, chuckling, as the Inspector opened his desk drawer. He paused, hand still in the drawer, and Mac wondered whether he had misplaced the evidence—though that hardly seemed to match the well-turned corners on everything this man touched.

The Inspector opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. The laughter had never been out loud, but its absence was suddenly resounding. “Our current suspect doesn’t deny that he was the one who gave the virgins’ tears to the victim,” he said at last. “But Miss Fisher remains convinced that he is innocent.”

Mac could feel the space where the missing piece of information should go. “All right.”

Inspector Robinson stared at the spic-and-span surface of his desk. “She did… extensive field work.”

Mac sat back in her chair, nodding. “Oh, I see.”

He stared at her evenly, and she stared back. Neither was smiling, and Mac couldn’t be sure what sort of not-smiling it was. He couldn’t, couldn’t possibly be surprised that Phryne would have disported herself with a murder suspect, either in spite of her own suspicions or because of them. Perhaps the occasion of his discomfiture was simpler still: the mere knowledge that Phryne might take to bed a man she had barely met, gloriously heedless of whom else she might wound. But no, that was impossible. Even a fool must know who Phryne was after so many months’ acquaintance, and whatever else he might be, Jack Robinson was no fool. But knowledge was rarely an anaesthetic, as Mac well knew. 

“You must understand,” Mac declared, her voice a deliberate knife through the gathering silence. “Miss Phryne Fisher would never do anything indelicate purely in pursuit of information.” The Inspector frowned at her, evidently perplexed. “She simply prefers to kill several birds with a single stone.”

Inspector Robinson seemed to absorb this without moving a hair, and even his intensity struck Mac as well-tailored. So this is what it looks like from the outside, she thought. This is what it looks like on you, instead of on me. The sensation was less pleasant than she would have expected it to be.

“Thank you for the information, Doctor Macmillan,” he said at last, and you could balance an egg on the edge of something so even as that calm voice. “Now if you could perhaps see about those virgins’ tears.” He pulled the phial from the drawer and held it pressed between his forefingers.

Mac nodded. “Of course. I’ll need to take the sample to the lab, but I can ’phone you once I have the results.”

“Thank you.” Inspector Robinson handed over the phial, and Mac held it up to the light. The phial was nearly empty, barely a single drop sliding along the length of it as she tilted it back and forth.

“No need for a lab, actually,” she said. “I’m afraid there isn’t enough here for a proper sample. Given the viscosity, whatever it was that killed your victim was pretty well diluted. There won’t be enough to capture here.” She rose to her feet and set the phial down on the edge of the desk.

Stoicism settled back into the lines of the Inspector’s face, though in truth it had never vanished. “Back to the drawing board, I suppose.” He put the phial back into the desk drawer and shut it. “Thank you for coming down.”

“It’s no trouble. I’ll see myself out.”

Pausing in the doorway, Mac turned back toward the Inspector, who remained standing at his desk, staring at his own hand on the drawer. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help.”

Inspector Robinson met her eyes and gave a small nod. “A minor disappointment, is all.” He shook his head slightly. “They’re part of the job.”

“Yes,” Mac returned. “They are.”

She gave a final nod and pulled the office door shut behind her.

 

~*~*~*~

 

Mac’s new hat spent the first ten minutes in its box on the empty seat next to her. But after pouring the tea, Phryne set down the bamboo-handled pot and declared: “oh, do pull it out and let’s look at it again. I cannot stand competing with a hat.”

Mac chucked in defeat. “It’s no good trying to fool you, I suppose.”

“None at all.” Phryne turned sparkling eyes from her friend’s face to the parcel in her hands as the new fedora was unwrapped. “I must say, our suspect has exquisite taste. It’s really quite dashing.” 

Their visit to the excellent haberdashery that had supplied Mac’s latest purchase had not been one of personal interest, though on that frontier it had proved quite a success. With respect to its intended purpose, however, the report of their expedition was still unclear. The shop assistant Phryne had hoped to speak to had been there, and had been only too glad to chat. She had been making good progress, and he had just begun to talk about the suspect—a longstanding customer—when another customer had walked in and demanded his time and attention.

Mac hummed assent to her friend’s judgment as she lifted the hat from its tissue. “One would expect no less of a jewel thief.”

“Though he is an unusual jewel thief in other respects,” Phryne remarked. “Most of them prefer to mix with the upper crust. What could our man want with a shop clerk like Freddie Woods?”

“Don’t know,” Mac said, carefully replacing the hat in its box. “Possibly he _is_ just a client.”

Phryne frowned and shook her head. “No, I’m sure their connexion goes deeper. A man like Macomber wouldn’t bother being polite to some boy in a shop, let alone remember his sister’s name.” 

Mac shrugged. “Maybe Woods is a dupe rather than an accomplice.”

“Yes, that’s possible.” Phryne refilled both of their cups. “I suppose I’ll have to go back.”

“You certainly will not, and nor will I,” Mac admonished. “It’s a men’s shop, Phryne. They’re not likely to forget a lady customer shopping on her own account, nor her pretty friend. If he’s anything other than a dupe, and a stupid one at that, he’d make us out directly.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Phryne said glumly. 

Mac refilled their teacups, and with the first hot sip, inspiration struck her. “What about Jack Robinson?” she said. “I know Lady Prescott prefers not to involve the police in an official capacity, but surely he owes you some favours.”

But the other only shook her head. “He won’t agree.”

“No harm asking.” Mac leaned back in her chair. “I know for a fact that Miss Fisher can be quite persuasive when the mood strikes.”

“Not this time,” Phryne said, quick and a bit sharp. “It’s quite all right. I did happen to see Macomber’s address when I glanced at the customer registry."

“Of course you did.” 

“It was out on the counter where anyone might see it,” rejoined her friend.

“Was it. And also open to the correct page?”

Phryne tipped her head. “I might have helped it along a bit.”

“Of course.” Mac shook her head, chuckling as she refilled both her own cup and Phryne’s. “So what’s next? Surely you’re not ready to confront him directly.”

“Mm, not quite. I think a bit more hard evidence is in order.” 

Mac raised her eyebrows. “And how will this evidence be collected, exactly?”

“Oh, you know. A bit of this and that.” Phryne smirked across the table. “Any interest?”

Mac’s laugh was halfway to a cough. “A bit rich for my blood, thanks. Last week’s shenanigans at the morgue were entertainment enough.”

“Well, I suppose I’m grateful you came out with me today.”

“Oh, don’t be absurd, this was just a bit of fun.”

“It _was_ fun, wasn’t it?” Phryne sighed. “I have missed this sort of thing.”

Mac emptied her little cup and reached for the teapot. “What about you? Your pockets are deeper than mine. As is your closet, for that matter.”

Phryne scoffed at the suggestion, then frowned as she realized that its author was sincere. “I do need a new frock for the Hospital Board fundraiser Saturday next,” she said slowly. 

“Two weeks from Saturday,” Mac corrected.

“That’s right, I’ve got my weeks mixed up.” Phryne paused, considering. “But wouldn’t you mind terribly?”

”Not at all. I appreciate all manner of spectator sports.” 

Doubt remained on Phryne’s face, which Mac answered with a dismissive wave. “It’s been years, darling.”

Another long look, and then Phryne nodded. “I suppose it has.”

Phryne had been there the last time Mac shopped for women’s clothing. She had, indeed, been the primary instigator—though it had been no traditional shopping excursion, but rather a raid. 

“You remember,” Mac said, once again draining her teacup.

“Yes.” Phryne tapped the edge of her own little cup, her eyes clouding over. “It was blue silk, wasn’t it?”

“Green, I’d thought.”

“No, blue,” Phryne rejoined, with confidence. “Well, perhaps one might call it aqua.”

Mac tipped her head, conceding the point. Peacock colours, whatever their precise shade, were hardly her area of expertise. In any case it was Phryne who had chosen the gown. What Mac recalled was not the garment itself so much as how it sat on her hips, the last gown she ever wore, not quite fitted enough to feel secure. She recalled not the colour of the fabric, but of her friend’s voice as she had pulled the gown from Mrs. Thorndale’s closet, exclaiming to her that she _must_ wear it, that it would suit her down to the ground. Indeed the dress had fallen that far, or very nearly, though suited her it certainly had not; a far better fit, Mac had felt it, when the dress fell full to the ground later that evening, as Phryne had coaxed it off her shoulders.

Blue, green, or aqua, it was nearly forgotten. Vermilion was what Mac recalled, a deep vermilion sheath of fine lawn that clung to Phryne’s curves and surely had not fit Mrs. Thorndale in years. It had been a touch too broad in the shoulders, and gapped beneath the arms, but Phryne took up Mrs. Thorndale’s black lace wrap and carried herself like newly minted royalty, until the moment when she too exchanged her garments for the press of skin upon skin. Mac had wondered, after, whether Phryne had ever returned the dress to her employer’s closet, though she herself never saw it again.

“Colour was always more your specialty,” she said. 

Phryne smiled into her tea. “I do like a bit of something bright.” 

“Don’t I know it,” replied Mac, chuckling. “So see about catching this jewel thief, won’t you, darling, and once your docket is cleared, we can fix you up with something bright for the Hospital Ball.”

“It’s a plan,” said Phryne, and nodded, once. “I think I will deserve something nice when this case is over.”

“I’ll say.” Mac smiled, warm with fondness. How extraordinary a blend of qualities was her friend: a fact which was impossible to ignore and yet which sometimes broke upon her anew, in moments such as these. 

“ _If_ I solve it,” added her friend, her glumness renewed.

“Don’t be absurd, of course you’ll solve it,” Mac declared. “You’re Phryne Fisher. That’s why you won’t give up until you do solve it. And that’s why you deserve something nice,” she added, more quietly.

Phryne’s face softened in affection. “What a great support to me you are. Do you know that? A bastion of constancy and good sense.”

“Likewise.”

But at this Phryne scoffed. “Now _that’s_ nonsense. I’m always flitting about, chasing after whatever has lately caught my interest.”

“You’re always you,” said Mac. “That’s constancy enough.”

“I am always me,” Phryne answered, as if reflecting upon great profundity. “And at present,” she continued, “my most excellent self-knowledge informs me that I want nothing so much as another cup of tea. Do you have time for a second pot?”

 

~*~*~*~

 

There was something of a hasty quality to the programme at the Hospital Board’s annual fundraiser that year. Although the event had been scheduled nearly two years ago, and the caterers and florists retained for nearly as long, there had been precious little advance consideration of such contingencies as struck the very week of the event. With one prominent member of the Faculty of Medicine murdered, another arrested for that same crime, and a third dismissed for false dealings, quick and extensive revision was required for the slate of past accomplishments and present appeals. Quite a bobbery it made among the organizing committee, who feared that bad news would keep the crowds away and pocket-books closed. They needn’t have worried, as Mac could have told them (though she did not try, having learned long ago the utter futility of trying to make herself heard to the society ladies on society matters) for the vast majority of party-goers counted the evening as just one more opportunity to parade about in fancy dress. To these, the change in personnel went barely noticed, to say nothing of the shift in the substance of the speeches. The work itself might require a good deal of brains, but the underwriting of it was fair enough served by empty heads, so long as they came furnished with full pockets.

Mac arrived at Mrs. Stanley’s house as late as could be thought decent and went straight for the champagne. The light of early evening was slanting through the windows of the great living room, which was already more than half full of chattering nabobs. A quick survey of the room revealed no familiar faces other than members of the board and some of the surviving faculty, so Mac sequestered herself in a corner, near an obligingly large potted plant, in hopes of escaping detection.

The fight for sovereignty was won primarily by the brevity of the contest, for it was barely a moment before Phryne arrived, swathed in blood red chiffon and on the arm of Inspector Jack Robinson, himself in an exceptionally sharp navy pinstripe. The inspector’s countenance reflected all of the pleasure that Mac herself was taking from the event, which was to say none at all, and at first glance he looked only a convenient prop, if a well-styled one, for Phryne’s resplendent elegance. But that picture was disturbed half a moment later when some dignitary secured the attention of the Honourable Miss Fisher, and Inspector Robinson stepped away for drinks. In the brief exchange that passed between them there was nothing of performance for the society of swells, of the sort at which Phryne so effortlessly excelled. His hand gentle on her bare shoulder, the quiet radiance in her face as she released him to his task, were gestures so unconsciously intimate that Mac almost turned away in shame for having seen it. 

The dance had changed between them, that much was clear. Only the Monday before, she had seen the two of them glaring at each other across the corpse of the unfortunate Doctor Katz. But it had been clear, when the three of them had toasted a job well done in Phryne’s parlour the next evening, that the friendship had been renewed. And much it was to Mac’s pleasure, as the Inspector had proved himself a solid citizen, and Phryne had lacked something of her customary sparkle in the intervening weeks when the two of them had been at odds. For all her vast acquaintance and the adulation of nearly all who met her, Phryne hadn’t many real friends, and Jack’s return to the inner circle marked the mending of a significant breach. 

Mac was glad of it, and gladder still that the air was clear between herself and Jack Robinson. Of all the dozens of men who had taken Phryne’s arm in public and private in the past year, Jack was the only one who was good for more than a single evening’s conversation. Of course, Mac thought as she disposed of the rest of her champagne, none of the rest had lasted much longer. In this, too, Jack was likely to be different. 

There was more champagne to be had, but not in the environs of her potted plant, so Mac ventured out into the miasma of glitter and chatter to secure a replacement. Barely had her hand closed upon the stem of a flute glass when she heard her name and turned to find none other than Inspector Robinson, himself holding an identical glass.

“Evening, Inspector,” she said. “Nice to see you.”

“Likewise,” he returned. “What brings you here?” 

“I,” Mac declared stoutly, “am required by contract. As are all of us at the Faculty of Medicine, though there are always a few that manage to beg off, the scabs.” She took a swig of her champagne. “What about yourself? What’s your excuse?”

Jack nodded in the direction of his companion, who was speaking animatedly to her original interlocutor and two or three others besides. “Similar story, although—” he frowned thoughtfully “—I don’t recall signing such a contract.”

“Seems like you have, though, from the looks of things.” 

“Well.” Inspector Robinson met this rejoinder with a flicker of a smile aimed squarely at his shoes. “I suppose it didn’t occur to me to resort to the more extreme measures undertaken by some of your colleagues this past week.”

Mac made a wry face. “Now there’s an angle we hadn’t considered. Maybe Katz checked his calendar and decided he couldn’t bear another gala.”

The Inspector, having set his untouched glass on a nearby table, put his hands in his pockets. “Seems a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

Mac scoffed. “Have you been to one of these before, Inspector? If not, talk to me again at the end of the evening. You can tell me then whether a touch of suicide doesn’t seem called for.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that it is, for those of us with a less social inclination.” As if in response to some external cue, the two both turned toward Phryne, who was evidently continuing to captivate a growing circle. “But it takes a special sort of social discomfort to think that a katana is—” he full abruptly silent as two others joined their party.

“Good evening, Doctor Macmillan,” boomed the larger of the two. “I hope we’re not interrupting?”

In Mac’s experience, Mister Compton of the hospital board never gave two figs whether he was interrupting or not, as such would require caring about the interests or wellbeing of others. But courtesy and career both demanded that she smile, and so she did. “Not at all.”

“There’s someone I’d like you to meet,” Compton said, apparently content to ignore Jack Robinson. “This is Mister Thomas Wilford, of Wilford Manufacturing. He’s interested in arranging for a private physician in exchange for….”

Jack blinked hard, which she took for as frank an expression of sympathy as either present circumstances or the author’s temperament might allow, and disappeared into the milling crowd. Mac fixed her face in polite attention and tried not to meditate upon death by katana either for herself or her interlocutors.

By the time Mac had extracted herself from the exchange, she had lost her original conversation partner. Inspector Robinson had himself become embroiled in a colloquy of some kind, listening to an intense disquisition by one of the local barristers. As the speaker gave no indication of flagging, Mac drifted instead toward Phryne, hoping that the latter’s obvious charm and energy might act as a kind of silver cross to ward off dullards and board members.

Most of Phryne’s erstwhile circle had dissolved. There remained only a somewhat fatuous-looking young woman in pink, the sort that inevitably washed ashore at events like these.

“Mac! Dear Mac,” Phryne cried at her approach. “You must come and meet Eloise.”

“Hello,” said Mac, taking the proffered hand.

“So good to meet you!” said the other. “Phryne’s told me all about you.”

“Has she? My condolences.”

Eloise gave a fluttery laugh and turned back toward Phryne. “Do please go on, I’m on absolute pins and needles.”

“There’s really not much more to it,” came the answer, in which Mac heard the notes of careful evasion. “He’s not really one for talking, when it comes to his own feelings, but he made himself clear enough.” Eloise giggled, and Phryne gave a gleeful bob of the head that made her earrings sparkle. “With a bit of help.”

“Well, he’s quite divine,” declared Eloise, craning her neck to get a better look at Inspector Robinson, and Mac was at once powerfully grateful to be neither an ordinary woman nor the sort of man that such preferred to look at. “ _I’d_ stay home for him, I would tell you that.”

“I’m afraid you’ve missed your window,” Phryne teased, then stepped to the side for a moment to seize two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter’s tray. Mac was grateful when Phryne held the second flute out to her; she tossed back the rest of her first glass and set it down to take the replacement.

“My loss, I suppose,” said the blond woman—what was her name? Mac had already forgotten—cheerfully enough. “Though I must say, I don’t quite know about going around in public with a man who’s—” she dropped her voice slightly “—divorced. Do you think it will be very difficult?”

“Oh, who can tell,” Phryne replied, in equally bright tones. “One can only hope. You know I’ve never cared what anyone else thinks, and I’ll just have to persuade him that he shouldn’t mind too terribly, either. I’m perfectly in love with him, and it’s not as if _I_ want to marry him.”

Love was a word Phryne used all the time. Strange it was, to Mac, but that’s what Phryne had always been like, that easy extravagance. There were easily half a dozen people she’d talked of, these eight months past, on whom she had conferred the word in lavish careless gestures, as if it were a sort of special-occasion cognac that could be reliably replaced at the local grocer’s. Mac knew how Phryne talked, and so mostly it was easy to let go. She sipped her drink, half-listening to Phryne and her cheery, air-headed conversation partner, until that moment when the latter moved on to some fresh vein of gossip. Mac could wait. She always had.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The kitchen smelled of some sort of sweet baking. Dot was seated at the kitchen table mending a sock, but she jumped up as Mac approached.

“Hello, Doctor Macmillan,” she said, with the same great seriousness she always had about her. “Would you like some tea? I’ve just made a fresh pot. The scones will be out in just a moment, though of course they’ll need to cool.”

Mac had not planned to linger unless it was for a proper drink, but a moment later she found herself seated at the table, hapless and overwhelmed by Dot’s hospitality. Mister Butler gave her a knowing smile and returned to the parlour.

Dot poured the tea and returned to her seat. “I hope you don’t mind if I continue with the mending,” she said. “Hugh is spending the evening with his sister’s family in Williamstown, but he’s taking me to the cinema tomorrow and I’d like to have it all finished before then.”

“Of course.” Mac took a sip of her tea—which was characteristically excellent—and remembered her office. “And how is that ankle mending?”

“Oh.” Dot smiled and ducked her head. “It’s fine. Thank you again for looking after me.” Mac waved her off, but she continued: “I feel so silly, really. All of this adventuring, and then I go and trip over a paving-stone.”

Mac chuckled. “You’d be amazed how many people do it every day.”

Dot shook her head in amusement, plainly gratified. “Anyhow, Miss Phryne thinks it best that I stay home until I’ve quite recovered. She’s out with Inspector Robinson at the moment.”

“Ah,” Mac said.

“Did you and Miss Phryne have plans?”

“Not really, no. Just your ordinary trouble-making.” There had been no precise itinerary for the evening; they had talked of the Palm, although there was some new supper club that Phryne was anxious to try. Mac, for her part, had hoped for something less stuffy. She had been campaigning to persuade her friend that her presence was much missed at the Adventurers Club—which the latter had not visited since the dreadful affair with Ailsa the month before—and had hopes that this might be the evening.

Again, Dot smiled. “I’m sure she’s sorry to miss it.”

Mac’s heart fell slightly in her chest. “Is she not due home, then?”

“I really couldn’t say, Mi— er, Doctor,” Dot said. “Some days, she doesn’t tell me very much.”

“Believe me, I understand.” Mac sipped her tea slowly, rearranging the evening in her head. Dot had such a sweet, earnest face—a real asset to Phryne, that face, Mac knew. 

Dot must have felt herself being studied, because she winced apologetically. “I’d tell you if I knew, Doctor Macmillan, honestly I would. She just took a phone call from the Inspector a few hours ago, and said she’d likely be out for the rest of the evening. “She bit her lip thoughtfully. “She said I wasn’t to come, but that’s likely to be just on account of my ankle.”

“I see.” Mac considered this. “Well, thank you, Dot.”

“Shall I tell her you stopped by?”

Mac shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”

Dot put down her mending. “I wouldn’t worry,” she said, and she really was quite a clever girl, even if she was missing bits of the picture. “She didn’t seem concerned about anything.” She tilted her head, as if hearing her own words. “But then I suppose Miss Phryne never really does.”

“That’s true enough,” Mac replied. “Well, I won’t keep you from your work. Have a good night, Dot. Don’t worry, I’ll see myself out.”

Dot had been rising from her chair, but she sat down and picked up the mending again and gave her a warm smile. “Good night, Doctor Macmillan.”

 

~*~*~*~

 

Mac blamed the pastis, afterward, and also the studio, but most of all herself. To Phryne she assigned no fault at all, for what had ever been the use of that?

The night that filming for _Bride of Babylon_ wrapped, Raymond Hirsch had arranged a celebratory dinner for half a dozen friends in the studio offices, an event which culminated in an impromptu showing of the film's opening scene, followed by a round of toasts. Inspector Robinson had been forced to depart early, partway through the screening, upon receipt of a message from Constable Bartlett requesting his attendance on a developing murder case in Collingwood; it was a mark of Phryne's exhaustion that she did not dissolve the gaggle forthwith in order to sally out with him. Half an hour later, the second bottle of champagne was finished, and film's two young stars took their leave (off to some even more exclusive and stylish gathering, Dot had opined, and those who remained were inclined to trust her.) Mac thought her friend would take the opportunity to make her own excuses once Dot began to yawn, but Phryne had glazed her demeanour with a wilful sparkle, the illusion of which Constable Collins was apparently unable to penetrate—though that, too, was characteristic—and when he stoutly offered to accompany Dot home, Phryne waved them off indulgently.

Only when the door had closed behind them did Phryne permit herself an expansive yawn. “Well, I _am_ quite exhausted, I don’t mind saying, now that it’s just the two of you. Directing is hard work.”

Mr. Hirsch grinned. “I did warn you, my dear. Shall we perhaps call it a night?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous.” Phryne rose to her feet and extended a hand to each of them. “There’s a bottle of pastis in my suite that has been waiting for just such an occasion as this. Two old friends and a reason to celebrate.”

Hirsch, clearly a greenhorn, gave a good wobble on the way up, but Mac gamely caught him by the arm before he could sit back down again and bore him toward the director’s suite. “Is this a gift from your Vicomte?” she asked.

Phryne laughed. “You give me too much credit. Phillipe is only a businessman, though a very successful one.”

“Well then, I withdraw my admiration.” Mac deposited a weakly giggling Hirsch on the sofa and took the seat next to him. “Shall we?”

“We shall indeed.” Phryne uncorked the bottle, and of an instant the room was rich with the perfume of anise. The very fragrance went to Mac’s head in a wave of pleasant dizziness.

“Just a finger to start each of us out, won’t you darling?” she murmured. 

“One mixes it with water, I’m told,” Phryne replied, eyes on the bottle as she poured.

Mac fetched the water pitcher from the sideboard and passed it to her friend, who topped up each of the cut-glass tumblers. The tourmaline liquid blossomed into a milky yellow, its heady fragrance thinned, but still Mac picked up her tumbler with some caution.

“Raymond, would you like to give this one?” Phryne asked.

Raymond said nothing, having slumped forward in peaceful slumber while the others were busy attending to the drinks. Mac elbowed him lightly in the ribs, and he sputtered briefly before subsiding back into light, gentle snores.

Mac chuckled. “I suppose we’d best put him in a cab.”

Phryne rose briskly to her feet. “There’s bound to be one outside. It’s early yet, after all.”

They shook him awake, and coaxed him into his coat and out onto the avenue, where the occasional motorcar chugged past. The cold freshness restored to everything and everyone their crisp edges. They had been not thirty seconds outside, but here in the bright damp light-jewelled darkness of a winter’s evening, the cosy effervescence of the recent festivities seemed already a distant veiled place, like an ancient memory preserved in silk. Mac smoothed her lapels and stole a glance at Phryne’s light-lined profile, sketched in the glow of the street lamp on the corner. Even the longest of evenings had always ended too soon, somehow— her foot had landed outside the fairy ring, and all at once the airs of the flutes had melted away, leaving only a dry crackle of leaves. 

A rush of cold against her cheek woke Mac from her reverie; Mr. Hirsch had been (no doubt unmindfully) serving as a windbreak, and now Mac stood exposed as Phryne ushered him into a cab that had pulled up to the corner.

“That didn’t take long,” Mac remarked, all composure, as Phryne stepped back up to the kerb. “Shall I take the next one? Or will you be collecting the car in the morning?”

Phryne frowned. “Don’t tell me you’re abandoning me, too. I’d have thought the taste of something new would keep you enticed.”

“I’m not leaving if you’re not,” Mac replied. “But I wasn’t the one yawning just now. And it has been a long campaign.”

Phryne turned on a brilliant smile. “You know me, Mac, I’m always up for more.”

“Of course, how foolish of me.” Mac felt her face soften, and turned quickly for the door. 

The whisper of cold followed them in from the pavement and through the empty sound stages, but the little suite was the same as they had left it: warm, close, fragrant with anise, every chair festooned with ridiculous velveteen throws, the lights humming softly. Phryne swooped down on the tumblers, passed one to her friend, and took up the other two for herself as she flopped onto the armchair.

“And now at last,” she said, lifting one of the tumblers to her lips, poised until Mac had seated herself carefully in the farthest corner of the sofa and pointedly raised her own.

“Salut,” murmured Phryne, and all at once the syrup and spice and heat of the drink were in Mac’s mouth, in her blood, in her brain, in the tips of her fingers, tingling.

“Whoof.” Mac shook her head. “That’s the stuff. Rather potent, isn’t it?”

“Mm.” Phryne took another sip and rolled it around her mouth. “Lovely, though.”

“It is that.” Mac held the second sip in her mouth and let its flavors coat her tongue, savouring, comparing. She hadn’t tasted absinthe since France, the night of the armistice; so flavourful was the radiant joy of that night that Mac feared her memory of the drink itself was untrustworthy.

“What are you thinking?” Mac looked up to see Phryne studying her face, then watched it light with realization. “So tell me the differences.”

Mac cocked an eyebrow. “Surely your Vicomte explained it all.”

Phryne rolled her eyes. She had set down the second glass, Mac noticed. “Philippe was all pomp and hearsay. I half expect he’d never tasted it himself. I want to hear it from you.”

Mac took another mouthful and held it. “It’s sweeter, certainly. Higher sugar content, but it also lacks the bitter edge.”

“Are you sure that wasn’t just the war?”

Mac turned her glass in her hand. “I doubt I would like it better, if it were only the war.”

“Sweet and light doesn’t suit you so well?” Phryne had tipped over the side of her chair and was looking at Mac slantwise. 

“Good enough for the moment,” Mac said, more softly than she had intended.

“Well, good.” Phryne’s hair had fallen a bit out of place, and a flush had risen to her cheeks. Mac’s head had likewise been turned, her traces all unravelled, and she caught her breath and looked away, stared down the last sip before draining her glass. 

“May I have this?” she asked, eyes down as she gestured toward the remaining tumbler.

“Mm. Please.” Phryne’s glass clinked on the surface of the table, still half-full. “I hate to admit it, but I might have to stop at one.”

“Your secret is safe with me.”

“I know it is,” Phryne replied. “They always are.” Warm and heavy was her voice, like a magnet in honey, and Mac found herself looking at her friend’s face, full of all the light she dared not let in.

Quickly she pulled her gaze to the floor, quickly quickly set the glass down, for her hand was shaking with memories older than the last taste of absinthe. But through the thickness of her throat she heard Phryne rise from the chair and sit down next to her on the sofa.

“Mac,” Phryne said quietly, and up Mac looked, up at the familiar, confounding geometry of that perfect face.

Phryne reached up and gently lifted Mac’s fedora from her head. “As much as I do love this dashing hat,” she said, setting it on the table, and kissed her.

First, sweetness: for an incandescent, intolerable eternity, joy and electricity made new. And then, after a long instant, all the newness unmade: Mac remembered the present, like dark spots after a shock of sunlight. They were not young, and if Phryne was not strictly attached, nor was she quite free. It was nineteen twenty-nine, and Mac had bought her independence in a hard-won coin that could not be returned. 

But oh, the soft press of lips, Phryne’s cool hand on her cheek, the gentle push of her tongue. Just as it was, or very nearly.

Mac fought to rouse herself, to push her friend away—but then Phryne’s hand slid into her hair, pulling loose the careful knots as her fingers traced the scalp, and Mac was lost. She threaded the fingers into Phryne’s sleek black hair while the other hand slipped under the hem of her blouse. Phryne gave a soft gasp, and in that small noise all of the sequestered imaginings of the past twelve years were drowned.

**

The first to awaken, Mac discovered by hard experience a lesson that could have been gained by reflection in a cooler moment: the sofa was too small to accommodate two sleepers comfortably. In conditions of discomfort, however, it had served admirably. Mac awoke humid and overly warm, pressed tightly between her friend’s body and the plush surface of the sofa’s back. Phryne’s arm was draped along the curve of Mac’s hip, and the latter was reluctant to stir, despite the close heat. Never once, through many hours of stolen and cherished hope, had Mac presumed that the old spring would flow renewed. 

Imagination had not seemed cool, but so it was discovered to be, in comparison with reality. The uncomfortable warmth of the makeshift bed, the damp press of skin on skin, the sting of her bitten lips, all burned hotter than fancy had been able to conjure or memory preserve. Had the antebellum world been better ventilated? Or perhaps a younger body could better bear the heat.

A determined project of rotation at last brought her cheek and forehead into contact with cool air, and her eyes within striking distance of the sleek black hair of her bedfellow. Phryne’s hair had fallen across her face, and only her lips and chin were visible. But for the rise and fall of her chest, she was still. How like, and how unlike.

All the years of deferred longing, piled like great thick blankets, were more than a single moment could support. Mac pulled herself upright and, discovering that her hand had fallen upon her shirt, retrieved that article and began to button it closed.

Beside her, Phryne stirred and smiled sleepily, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “Good morning,” she murmured. 

“Morning,” Mac replied, still buttoning.

Phryne pushed herself up with a bit of a wince. “Not our wisest choice of overnight accommodations.”

“You might say.” Mac’s head was hurting; the sweet liqueurs always did do her in.

Phryne hummed and languorously draped her arms around Mac’s neck. “Surely there’s no need to go just yet.” She leaned in for a kiss and then stopped, barely an inch between their mouths, and pulled back. 

Furious Mac had been, half a second before, that Phryne would presume to take so casual an intimacy—and then all in a moment the fury turned toward herself, for having extinguished it.

“You’re angry,” Phryne said.

Mac said nothing, for that seemed to be the complete picture.

“Was it the wrong time?” continued she, in a low and steady voice. 

“How d’you mean?” Mac ceased her search for her trousers to look at Phryne in perplexity.

“How do I mean.” Phryne tipped her head, evidently choosing her words with care. “You’ve got such a great deal going on inside. Different weather on different days. I suppose I can’t always tell whether it’s a day when this sort of thing is all right with you.”

It was both just and surprisingly astute, though why she found it surprising Mac could not say. She nodded acknowledgement and bent to collect her trousers.

Phryne appeared to accept this, for she did not press further. She watched a moment in silence as Mac gathered up her remaining items, then herself rose and began to collect her own garments. A moment later Mac was tucking her cravat into her collar, and Phryne had located nearly all the elements of her own elaborate costume.

“Never mind me,” Mac said at last—and she had not meant to speak at all, but there it was— “what’ll you tell your inspector?”

The other only shrugged as she fastened her brassiere. “Jack will be fine.”

Mac scoffed. “Please tell me you’re not stupid enough to think that.”

Phryne met her gaze and held it. She didn’t look rattled—but then she never did, not this new Phryne whose dresses were real silk, even in moments like this when she wasn’t wearing them. But she looked at Mac a long time, just looking, before she said anything.

“Jack and I will sort it out,” she said at last, a faint trace of warning in her voice.

Mac sighed, defeated. “All right,” she said quietly. Phryne dropped her eyes to the fastenings of her blouse, and suddenly, powerfully, Mac wished that she had kissed her one more time.

 

~*~*~*~

 

A dedicated educator Mac was—there was work enough in the clinic to keep her busy, but it was the teaching that Mac loved most. 

But even so eager a gardener of young minds as herself might be forgiven her dislike of thorns and nettles, and the written exams from musculature lecture definitely qualified. The final round of these sat on the corner of her desk, the stack of them, taunting her in their loquacious mediocrity. But there existed no other hand that would pluck this thorn: she must do it herself.

After one more cup of tea.

Mac had hardly seated herself again when there came a knock at the door.

“Come in,” she called, and hastily snatched the top exam off of the pile. But the pretence dropped, and the paper with it, as she took in the figure of her visitor.

“Inspector Robinson!” she cried warmly. 

“Doctor Macmillan,” he returned, ever cordial.

“What brings you to these dark haunts?” asked she, gesturing toward the chair opposite the desk.

“Our friend Lorraine Bates,” replied the Inspector, who remained in the doorway. Mac struggled for a moment to recall an acquaintance of that name, until the Inspector held up the skull. “We’d been keeping her as evidence for the Katz trial.”

“Oh, of course.” Mac nodded. “Material witness?”

Inspector Robinson smiled briefly toward the floor. “A highly effective one, I would say. The trial wrapped last week, so we’re sending her home.”

“Good enough. So where are you dropping her off?” 

“Yes, I suppose that’s something of a delicate matter, isn’t it?” he said in reply, then frowned. “I’ve got the name written down.” He reached into his pocket for his notebook, and Mac smiled to herself as she realized, a moment after the fact, that she had taken up the Inspector’s trick of referring to the skull as if it were still Lorraine Bates (or perhaps as if her remains still retained some feminine character.) 

A bit strange it was, that she felt so glad to see him, even after her tangle with Phryne—though the pleasure itself was of a strange, admixed character. His attention was all on his notebook, for these few brief seconds, and she could scrutinize him unguardedly. 

He seemed more or less as he always was, though this, as she had learned, could be deceptive. They were not unlike, he and she, each with their thick outer shell that reported no injury. Mac supposed that he, like she, could ride out all manner of discontents under a veil of opaque composure, and would sooner withdraw from sight than permit the veil to drop. At least until the strain exceeded what even private reflection could bear.

Would this—would she—be such a case?

It did not appear to be. He was here, and he wasn’t shouting at her, nor had he gone stiff and cold, taking cover under a shell of dullness as he did when he was unsure of himself. It was as if he had stopped by to visit an old friend, any old friend, the new old friend that Mac was turning out to be. As if nothing in the world were amiss, other than death and suffering and all the other reliable, inevitable factors that always hummed in the background of his world and hers.

Mac sighed inside. She could only conclude that Phryne had not told him about their dalliance of the week before. Pleased though she was to have one last opportunity for ordinary social congress, she could not help take the very fact of it as indication that her friend had not, and likely would not, make good on the pledge she had given Mac last week. And wasn’t that predictable—for it certainly suited Phryne’s purposes well enough to keep harmony among her friends by keeping the Inspector in the dark. And were the deception uncovered—well, Phryne was charming enough to get away with it, Mac thought with a surge of dislike. And she and Jack alike were the dupes. 

“A Mister Branford in office 120,” announced her fellow dupe, having recovered his notebook and found the page.

“Oh yes,” said Mac, “the provost. And _acting_ treasurer,” she added pointedly.

“Still?” Inspector Robinson frowned inquiringly.

Mac raised her eyebrows at him. “You may have heard, we’ve been having some staffing problems.” She took a sip of her tea, which had cooled during her negligence but was still drinkable. “Everyone’s pitching in extra where they can. Once Trinity term is off the ground, we ought to be on steadier footing.” She chuckled dryly to herself. “Assuming we get there in one piece.” At his querying look, Mac gestured at the pile on her desk. “These are from Hilary term, and I’m just now getting to them.”

The Inspector took in the stack with a small, sympathetic grimace. “You have been busy,” he said, as if in confirmation. 

“Virtually chained to the desk,” she agreed. “Anyhow, Branford should be safe. He’s got rather outdated views on a woman’s place, but he was a great friend of Katz’s. Besides, he’s uptight as a bishop’s zip. Safe as if you shipped it back to America yourself.” 

She took another sip of tea, and was suddenly stricken by the consciousness of her own inhospitality. “Would you like to come in?”

He looked at her for a long moment, silently, keenly, as if this were strange and unexpected—and so it was, she supposed, to a man who undoubtedly made responsible use of all of his working hours.

“Don’t worry about these,” she said, with a flick of her hand toward the loathsome stack. “I was a confirmed delinquent before you stopped by. Besides,” she added, tipping her chair back, “a nice chat will do wonders for my general goodwill toward the world, and I might be able to manage some meaningful progress.”

“I see.” He nodded. “Responsible shirking?”

She grinned. “You’re getting the picture.”

The Inspector nodded assent and took the chair opposite the desk. He sat silently, his posture crisp and a bit stiff, and Mac recalled that she had in fact offered him the seat when first he arrived.

“So what’s the verdict?” Mac asked. 

Inspector Robinson blinked. 

“For Professor Bradbury,” she added, by way of clarification.

“Oh, yes.” He nodded. “Guilty. Sentencing isn’t until next week, but he’s likely to be hanged.”

Mac sighed, crossing her arms across her chest. “It’s still so hard to believe it happened.” 

“Is it?” asked the other. 

Mac leaned forward and folded her hands on her desk. “Well, it’s not really. He was very committed to his ideas, Bradbury.” 

“Your contribution to the gene pool, for example.”

Mac snorted. “Exactly. Still, I would have thought killing was a step too far for him.” She sighed again. “But I suppose we don’t know what terrible things people will do, when they feel like their back’s against a wall.”

The Inspector only looked at her intently.

“It’s a terrible thing to say, isn’t it?” she said, into the empty space of his silence. That steady gaze was somehow compelling, itself a prod to further disclosure. He was, Mac thought—again—a very effective policeman. “But the truth is that there aren’t many people I would trust.”

“Other than yourself?”

Mac scoffed. “Who said anything about including myself?”

“You have endorsements from other quarters,” he replied.

She leaned back in her chair. “Have you been investigating me, Inspector?”

“Not in any strict formal sense,” he returned. “But I have, by the by, collected some glowing testimonials on your behalf from a certain Miss Fisher.”

Mac chuckled. Of course it was back to Phryne. 

“And members of her household,” he added.

Mac took a sip of tea and leaned back from her desk. “She’s quite fond of you, you know,” she said, at once careless and precise. 

“Well, I’m quite fond of her,” replied the Inspector.

Yes, she nearly said out loud; that was always the problem, wasn’t it? Yes, she wanted to say out loud, so he could hear her clearly, so he could see the full picture; yes, I know exactly how that goes.

“She’s got a great deal of fondness to go round,” Mac said, with just a hint of force. 

“Yes,” replied he, his voice gone soft. “It’s quite wonderful.”

Mac felt her eye drop, but nodded assent, in compensation as much as in acknowledgment. She must tell him, she knew, if Phryne would not. But oh, how hard it was to find the words to deliver the truth, yet to coat them in a layer of discretion, the diffusing veil of privacy that a decent man deserved, when required to absorb such a thing. To find the words, to deliver them properly, was harder than she had imagined. 

“Her fondness,” Mac said at last, “goes farther than you might imagine.”

Again, his quiet, intense gaze sliced into her. “A two-edged sword, perhaps?”

He knew, surely he knew—or knew, at least, that Phryne was not his alone, even if he did not divine Mac’s own role in the tableau. He was too keen an observer to have missed so fundamental a part of his own lover’s character. But then, why this careful intensity? Why this close attention, as if Mac were intimating some half-formed occult secret rather than naming the plain truth of things? Many a wise head, she reflected, had been turned from their own wisdom, and by lesser spirits than Phryne Fisher.

“I’m saying,” Mac said softly, “that it’s wise to handle an object with caution when it has sharp edges.”

Again he said nothing, but only looked, as if Mac’s face might give up her secrets. This time, she met his gaze frankly.

“I like you,” she said. “And…” she swallowed. “And I’ve known her a long time.”

“I know,” he said, gentle and stern and still and utterly opaque. What he did know was no clearer to Mac than it had been an hour ago. And there we have it, spoke the wry voice in her head: though the detective work might be new, Phryne never had been able to resist a mystery.

Mac reached for her cup and found it empty. “Would you like some tea?”

“Thank you, but no.” He pushed to his feet, and in that flurry of movement, she found herself incongruously admiring the lines of his jacket. “I’d best be getting back to the station. I had Collins reviewing some old files, and if he’s done with that, he’s likely to be chatting away with Miss Williams on the telephone.”

“And blocking any incoming calls in the meantime.”

He nodded. “That too.”

“Well, it’s back to work for me too, then,” Mac declared, and pulled the dropped exam toward herself. “No more time for idleness.”

“Best of luck with those,” the Inspector said, as he put his hat on.

“Thanks,” she replied grimly. “And thanks for coming by.”

“Are your spirits restored?”

He was looking at the stack of exams. Mac stared blankly for a moment before recalling her own earlier remark. 

“Sure they are,” she said. “I’ll be through these in a couple of hops.”

“Glad to hear it.” He smiled at her, for what she realized was the first time in the course of the visit. 

“Stay warm out there,” she said. 

“You too,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

 

~*~*~*~

 

A long and draining day it had been. Mac tried to avoid shifts at the clinic on tutorial days, which were far more demanding than lectures, but she never said no in an emergency, a fact which was all too widely known among the ward nurses. There had been two births and one death at the clinic that morning, and then a dash across town, and then three hours’ grinding through the basics of surgical incision. Mac was hardly one to begrudge herself a drink on any day of the week, but this evening’s libations felt particularly well-earned. She was half-tempted to ’phone ahead to the Adventurers Club to ensure that whatever remained of the Kinsey Rye was set aside for her especial use. 

The rye was gone, she discovered upon arrival (done to death by her own hand some weeks earlier, in an evening she no longer recollected) but there was scotch in plenty. It was unusually crowded for a Tuesday, and Mac’s hopes of finding a partner for billiards were satisfied in an unsatisfying excess: Lucy and Vi were in the middle of a lively rack, while Mabel stood to the side reporting on her own impatience in a series of friendly jibes at the players. Mac polished off her drink and, armed with its replacement, betook herself to the sitting room with every intention of getting properly soused. It was midweek, after all, and the guest rooms were unlikely to be let. It had always been Margie’s policy to let members in good standing pass the night in an unoccupied suite. She could drive home in the morning.

The sitting room was uncommonly full for a weekday night. Some of the younger girls had pushed the sofas and armchairs together in a circle in the centre, which left Mac no quiet corner to retreat to. Her moment of bereft despondence was interrupted, rather than ended, by an eager cry of “Mac!” that went up among the girls, but she let herself be dragged over to the sofa by Clara, who promptly draped herself over Mac’s shoulder. 

Well, that was rather nice. Clara was quite a fetching girl, but she had never shown Mac any particular attention, seeming to prefer the racers to the billiard players. But now her hand trailed along Mac’s forearm, though her large dark eyes remained fixed on Josie as she recounted some exploit of the evening gone by involving an abducted car and a police officer.

“And he did let us go, after that,” Josie said, “though he did say he had never seen such a bobbery, in all his days on the force.” 

As green an article as the girls themselves, Mac thought privately, if that were the truth of it—though she spoke nothing aloud, but only produced a smile such as could be plausibly fitted to the mood of the company, which was taken up in gales of delight at Josie’s story. When one of the younger girls related some tale she felt to be daring, Mac was always reminded of some adventure she had got up to herself that entirely dwarfed that of the other. But rarely did she relate them, for rarely would to do so accomplish more than to spoil the fun of the teller and her audience. A tough old bibber she felt, in among a crowd of gay songbirds, whenever she joined in with the younger set at the Club. But she could cut her coat as she chose, according to that cloth, and so she held her tongue. 

“And what is it you are thinking?” said a voice at her ear—Clara, who had observed Mac’s reverie. “Stories of your own?”

Mac turned to her, and stole a glance at the rest of the circle. Nobody else appeared to have taken note, and the conversation gambolled on heedless of its two dropouts. 

“A few,” Mac returned. She finished her scotch and set the glass on the side table.

Clara, eyes gone dark, traced a finger along the wave of Mac’s hair where it lay over her forehead. “I hope I’ll get to hear them someday.”

“Probably not. I prefer to let others do the talking in a crowd.”

“Who said anything about a crowd?” Clara murmured.

Her mouth tasted of gin and lemon, and she was the sort of girl who went straight in with the tongue, which Mac did not prefer but could certainly tolerate for an evening. She swung herself onto Mac’s lap, to the melody of catcalls from the gathered group.

“Ignore them,” Clara murmured, nuzzling into Mac’s ear. “They’re only jealous I got to you first.”

Mac chuckled. “Anyone who’s interested can try her hand another night.”

Smiling, Clara nipped at her lower lip, and came in for another deep kiss.

Clara’s hands were inside her jacket when, a few moments later, Vi’s voice cut across the noise of the room. “Oi, Mac!” Mac broke the kiss with Clara and looked over at her friend. “Your turn for billiards, if you’re not indisposed.”

“Next round, cheers,” Mac called back, over Clara’s shoulder. 

“What,” Clara said teasingly, “you reckon you’ll be bored of me by then?”

“Not bored.” Mac gave her a quick kiss. “More of an intermission.”

“All right.” Clara slid her hand under Mac’s cravat at the back of her neck and pulled her in again. 

It was a mixture of feelings that occurred, when Mac’s name was again called for the game. She had wearied of Clara’s aggressive kisses, though the curving form beneath her dress felt as delicious as it had always looked from afar.

“To be continued,” she said, half statement and half query, running her hand up Clara’s side. Clara smirked as she slid to her feet. Cue in hand, Mac glanced back through the sitting room door to discover Clara in animated conversation with some other girls, though she caught Mac’s eye and blew a kiss.

Mac was lining up for a swerve when a familiar voice filtered in, bright sparkling notes cutting her to the very quick. Phryne had not been back to the club since Ailsa’s arrest, and Mac had not been prepared to see her. She closed it out, just as she did in the clinic, and in the stillness of her own mind took the stroke. The 7-ball sank into the left corner pocket, just as Mac had intended, and she lifted her eyes from the table to meet Phryne’s, which showed only the briefest trace of surprise.

“Why Mac, this is an unexpected pleasure! I didn’t know you would be at the club tonight.” Phryne was in full war-paint, red lips gleaming atop a column of sea-green linen and a smoke-coloured coat of cunning drape. 

“I’m here often enough,” Mac returned evenly, leaning on her cue. “Are you up for a round? I believe the docket’s finally empty. Unless Vi wants another go.” 

Vi shook her head. “No, I’m off after this game. Some of us have to work in the morning.”

“Some of us worked a full day and are still able to trounce the competition. Has Lucy gone?”

Phryne bobbed her head. “I could perhaps be persuaded to play a round.” 

Mac was little enough inclined to persuade Phryne to do this or any thing, and kept her eyes on the table. Lucy was found, and was ready enough to take up the opposing cue; Phryne watched the first several shots and then disappeared, likely in pursuit of her own refreshment.

The game had been close, but Lucy flubbed the next stroke and then scratched on her next turn. “I think my night’s over,” she declared with a rueful laugh. “I ought to retire in disgrace right here.”

“No, do finish the game,” said Phryne, reappearing at Mac’s side with two scotches in hand. “I want at least one drink inside of me before I take up the cue myself.”

“You’re a harsh mistress, Phryne,” Lucy declared, still laughing.

Mac leaned against her cue once more, watching Lucy square up for a bank shot, and Phryne held one tumbler out to Mac. “Your drink of the evening, I believe,” she said, her voice low and her eyes on the billiard table.

“Thanks.” Mac, eyes likewise on the table, tipped the glass toward her friend before taking a sip. “Impressive intuition.”

“I _may_ have sneaked a look at the tab registry for this evening before making my own selection.” 

Mac laughed wryly. “Good enough. How d’you like it?”

“It’s… nice,” Phryne replied, with some effort. “Peaty.”

“Spare yourself, it’s not for everyone.” Mac smiled at her friend in earnest. “Go get yourself a gin on my tab. I’ll finish this.”

Phryne scoffed. “Oh, nonsense. I can buy my own drinks.”

“As you like. I’m happy to drink them.”

“Hey Mac,” called Mabel from her spectator’s perch at the other end of the table. “You still with us?”

“Give us a moment,” Mac called back. “True art takes time.”

Phryne flashed a brilliantly warm smile, deposited her tumbler on the table’s edge, and went for the drinks cabinet. Mac found it took longer than usual to clear her mind for the shot.

“Well, that’s finally done,” Lucy said, walking round to give Phryne her cue. “And good riddance to me. Back tomorrow, though,” she said, pointing at Mac.

“And if I’m here, I’ll surely beat you again,” Mac replied cheerfully. Lucy was already re-racking the balls, in keeping with house custom, and then stood over the far end of the table in anticipation of the next game.

“Shall we?” Phryne asked.

It was so near a draw—and Phryne was so ill-inclined to confess herself the loser in any situation—that they played another round, once they had surveyed the room and discovered that nobody else wanted to play. They were only a few shots in when Clara came up, her purse clutched in her hand.

“I have to go home,” she said, “I’ve got to be in at work quite early tomorrow. But I hope—” and she set a hand upon Mac’s arm “—that we can do this again another night.”

“I hope so,” Mac returned. Clara hummed and leaned in for a long kiss. When at last she drew back, she trailed a hand down Mac’s arm and gave her a languorous smile as she turned away.

The cue ball cracked sharply off another ball that disappeared, too quick for Mac to see, into the side pocket. Phryne straightened, evidently pleased with herself. “You’ve made a friend, I see,” she said, eyes on the table.

“I have been coming regularly,” Mac said mildly.

Phryne sighed. “And I haven’t.”

Mac met her eyes. “You have been missed, you know.”

“Have I?”

“Sure enough.” Mac gave a dry chuckle and bent to take her shot. “Ask anyone here.”

Phryne bought Mac another scotch when she won (by a decisive margin, this time) and they ceded the table to a few of the younger set who had come to watch the last few strokes. Mac’s feet had begun to hurt again—it had been foolish to stand so long, at the end of a tutorial day— and she gladly accepted Phryne’s suggestion that they take to the sofas that had been so recently abandoned in the sitting room.

The girls had at least arranged the sofas as they belonged, in smaller clusters throughout the room. Phryne, after draping herself on a chaise in such a manner as to show her costume to its best effect, cast a wistful eye around the room.

“It’s been barely a month,” Mac said quietly. “You’re no stranger here.”

“Closer to two.” There was something like resignation in Phryne’s face. “And I still can’t quite shake the feeling that I’ve rushed things.”

“Nobody blames you, darling.” The endearment was out of her mouth before her mind could stumble over it—and a fine thing, too, to discover that this was so. In the weeks since their tryst at the studio office, all the good sense that could be brought into requisition had been hardly enough to prevail upon her own organs of sentiment and cognition in recognizing how minor was that one evening’s dalliance, to Phryne and ultimately to herself. This friendly evening together would seal it, restore the old order.

She discovered her friend’s eyes still fastened on her face, awaiting further explanation of her remark, and Mac recollected herself. “It was Ailsa’s own doing, not yours,” she continued. “Nobody faults you for your part. You were setting a terrible affair to rights, not bringing fresh trouble.” 

Phryne’s face was sceptical. “I believe you’re more kind than realistic.”

Mac scoffed at the absurdity of such a charge from such a source. “I’ll show you. Hey Margie!” 

The timing was capital: on less busy weekday nights, Margie typically made only a single circuit of the Club, trusting to the crowd, comprised as it was predominantly of regulars, to pick up after themselves and keep an honest tally of their drinks. Margie looked over at her name, and her countenance lit up when at the sight of the two friends.

“Why, Phryne Fisher!” she exclaimed, crossing the sitting room in her great loping strides. “Too rare a pleasure, this is!”

“Hello, Margie,” replied the other, and though her voice was calm Mac could hear in it the timbre of being well pleased.

“Why, if you hadn’t been keeping up with dues I’d have thought you left town!” Margie declared. “Come, what’s your drink tonight?”

“I’m quite done for the night,” Phryne replied. “But thank you, really.”

Margie looked at Mac. “Vodka tonic,” Mac said. 

Margie nodded and stumped off to the drinks cabinet, returning with another. “This is on the house. Don’t be a stranger around here, all right?”

“Be careful, Phryne,” Mac added. “If you don’t do as she says, you may have even more drinks thrust upon you.”

Phryne accepted the glass, laughing. “It’s a promise,” she said. 

“Any free rooms tonight, Margie?” Mac asked.

“All three. You stay as late as you like, Doctor.” Margie beamed at them broadly a moment longer, then bid them goodnight as she returned to her house rounds. 

Mac leaned back, well satisfied. “What did I tell you?”

Phryne shook her head, laughing. “Your point has been made. But whatever am I to do with this?”

Mac tipped her own glass. “Drink up, pet.”

Phryne set her free hand to her hip in cheerful admonition. “I was serious about being done for the night.”

Mac shrugged. “That’s hardly my problem. Besides, you heard Margie. Plenty of room at the inn.”

Phryne rolled her eyes and took a demure sip.

After twenty minutes, the crowd had dwindled to half a dozen, and Mac had sobered up just enough to see that Phryne had been quite correct, and would be in no state to drive herself home in the near term. When Phryne went to the loo, Mac took the precaution of taking the keys to the Hispano-Suiza out of her friend’s handbag, but in the event, Phryne required very little persuasion.

“I’ve been away too long,” she stated, with the gravitas of one well and truly feeling their oats. “I can’t bear to leave just yet.”

“It all works out beautifully, doesn’t it?” answered Mac. “Come on, let’s get you upstairs.”

It was really only the coat that required navigating on the way up from the sofa, when an ill-placed foot might have trod upon it; but Mac stayed close by her friend’s side just in case as they climbed the stairs. The three guest rooms stood open, each with its key in the door. Mac ushered her friend to the first door and made for the second herself, but Phryne grasped her hand and held her back.

“Do stay awhile,” she said, her bright lips curving. She had refreshed her lipstick, Mac now noticed.

Her voice was low, and her gaze intense—but such was her demeanour at all moments, as anyone acquainted with her half a month well knew. A pretty sort of self-flattery it was, to suppose that an intense look from Phryne was the preface to any designs upon oneself. It was a stupid thought, and a ridiculous one besides. Mac resolved to leave it at the door as she followed her friend into the room. Caution might be a virtue, yet she had grown altogether too wary, of both her friend and herself.

Phryne sprawled out on the bed, and Mac sought out the little chair in the corner when her friend again seized her hand. Caught off guard, Mac found herself in the next moment perched on the end of the bed next to Phryne, tweed flank pressed to silken. The very closeness hovered like a fragrant cloud, entirely too beguiling. Mac now felt foolish again, dazzled and terrified.

“Is that a good idea?” She asked quietly. She did not like to acknowledge her difficulty so frankly, but the weeks since their last liaison had not, after all, been sufficient to chase away the lingering heat. Mac feared another mistake, of supposition if not of action.

“It is the _only_ good idea,” Phryne replied. “I’m not quite tired yet, are you?”

“You’re a regular firecracker,” rejoined Mac. “Which is particularly impressive, considering how much you’ve had to drink.”

“You are correct in particulars, but not in your general point.” She raised a finger to trace Mac’s jawline. “I may be a bit in my cups, but I always know what I like.”

The light, slow touch made her dizzy as the scotch had not. Phryne’s face was close, her red lips glowing, and Mac was only flesh: she took hold of her friend’s head and pulled their mouths together. Phryne hummed in pleasure and clutched at Mac heatedly, almost clumsily — a thing that Phryne almost never was, however deeply stewed she might be. The pinch at Mac’s heart was unbearable, and ruthlessly she pushed it aside. Her heart had gotten her into this mess, and her heart would pay for it, soon enough. 

 

~*~*~*~

 

“Black coffee,” was all she said to the girl behind the counter, and the first words she had spoken yet that day. Mac’s stomach was rumbling, but there was pleasure to be had in discomfort well-deserved. She needed to be sharp and alert, to think clearly through what had happened the night before, what was all too likely to happen again if she was not more careful. She needed to be in pain.

Phryne had been asleep when Mac awoke next to her in the little guest-bed, and still asleep as Mac had tucked her cravat into her collar and quietly pulled the door closed behind her. What was there to say? Phryne had gained her point. 

Mac’s wallet had fallen to the bottom of her satchel, and as she fished it out, another shop girl came out from the back, bearing a tray of fresh-baked scones. Their fragrance was altogether delicious. A moment’s chagrin, and then: “and I’ll take one of those as well.”

She took her coffee and pastry to a table by the window, chuckling at her own severity. Pain enough she would have, with or without breakfast in her belly. There was no point in self-denial, as Phryne (and Melbourne more generally) had taught her. But still the inclination lingered, in traces: the old gods surfacing to thunder at her in those moments of deepest, most elemental terror and dismay. As this surely was.

Two mistakes were possible, of course. Two did not, by itself, make a definitive pattern. But Mac had never lied to herself and preferred not to start now. She had never stopped desiring Phryne, exactly, but many were the years when that part of her life, of their intersecting lives, was simply over. The plain fact of it had been as solid as her own front door. It had been easy to ignore a possibility that did not exist. But now the ghosts were astir—or else it was a new tendril sprung fresh from an old dry vine. Mac did not know which, and the distinction was unimportant. She had students who were convinced that etiology was a silver bullet, that any illness whose source could be traced could be cured. Experience had taught her that it was useless to try to tell them otherwise, just as it had taught her that knowing the cause of sickness was not itself a cure. They would learn it too, in time. It did not always require a clear diagnosis to know when a patient was terminal. 

As she herself was. 

Mac had always kept her house in order by knowing when to let go, when she must look away and move on. But these same faculties, so vital to the preservation of her happiness, appeared to have degraded. Watching the steady flow of foot traffic stream by—all her unknown neighbors, surely some future patients among them—she felt, suddenly, as foreign to herself as any of those strangers. She had felt lost on her first arrival in Melbourne, as innocent a handful of human flesh as had ever tramped the earth. That young, undamaged article surely would have counseled her present self to trust the wild, foolish feelings that crashed so noisily about inside. She knew better—she knew better—and yet the noisy crash remained. 

This swarm of feelings—the whole shameful mess of it—were not to be set down, after all. She would have to face them, one way or another. 

The best thing might, perhaps, to remove herself from Phryne’s society entirely, although the very thought was painful in many ways. The loss of Phryne herself, though in some respects the most painful of all, was also the most easily managed, for that was itself the bitter medicine, and she knew how to swallow it. But it was the second-hand losses that plucked at her mind until the entire world seemed as if it might unravel. Mac had not quite reckoned how much of her regular society was routed through Phryne’s house: how steady and comforting was the presence of Dot, how deeply satisfying the biology tutorials with Jane. How much she had come to enjoy the company of Jack Robinson, even as he was the reason she must sever herself.

But no, he was not quite the reason, for he was as much a fellow-victim as an occasion. Mac, for her part, required no evidence that her friend held fidelity to be a soluble concept. To be such evidence for another’s account-keeping was hardly a pleasant experience, but it was not his fault. 

An odd fondness for Jack Robinson had taken root inside of her, and Mac was troubled at the knowledge of his certain distress, be it sooner or later, at the hands of their mutual friend. A general sense of guilt it was, rather than one more particular, that haunted her: that she, by her unfailing friendship to Phryne, might have lent an air of steadiness to a butterfly-natured spirit who could never earn it on her own. It was the evident steadiness of his own heart that exhorted her to advise him, in a manner impossibly divorced from time or incident: keep one’s friends and one’s lovers separate. It is much cleaner and efficient that way. But even if such a moment out of time might be found, Mac thought ruefully, she was hardly a credible adviser.

The clock struck ten, the little cuckoo-clock on the cafe wall anticipating, by a few seconds, the deep thronging bell of the church down the street. It was ten o’clock, and she was late. She munched the last morsel of scone and set off toward the college.

A lively, hustling step delivered Mac to her office at twenty past ten. She preferred to have a full hour to prepare before lectures, but having recently refreshed herself on this very material for an honours exam, the remainder of the hour should serve.

There was a slip of paper on Mac’s desk, the pale yellow of Millicent’s memorandum pad. Mac muttered yet another hex against the woman, whom, she was fairly certain, would hold the male instructors’ phone messages at her own desk rather than letting herself into their offices. 

_’phone call for Dr. Macmillan at just after 10 o’clock_

_From Hon. Phryne Fisher_

_“Next time, let’s play a game I can win.”_

Mac crumpled the note in her fist and tossed it into the wastebasket. She had wasted enough time.

**

Gordon had questions after the lecture, as he always did. Mac lingered with him a few moments at the front of the lecture hall, and then in steps heavy with meaning, began the walk back to her office. It required an additional few minutes, winding down his inquiry about cranial blood supply, before she was able to forestall the next query and retreat into her office.

“He seems to be sweet on you,” said Phryne, who was sitting on the desk with knees crossed. 

Mac discovered in herself a cold equanimity that was distantly pleasing. “He’s enthusiastic about the subject,” she replied, setting down her books on the chair near the door. “One learns to tell them apart.”

“I wonder whether he’s aware of your proclivities,” Phryne continued, undaunted. She had changed her costume from the night before, and was now wearing a hounds-tooth wool suit of navy and cream. How she had found the time to effect the transformation was one of the mysteries of Phryne Fisher that was best let to lie by commoners such as herself.

Mac would not give her the pleasure of asking what she wanted, but instead began to move about her office as if she were its sole occupant. 

“You didn’t reply to my message,” Phryne said.

Mac kept her eyes on the bookshelf as she returned the volumes to their proper places. “Some of us have to work.”

The books now restored, Mac had exhausted the ordinary run of tasks laid out for after lectures, other than those that took place at her desk. She pulled another book from the shelf and opened it as if hunting up some vital fact.

“Mac,” said Phryne, who after all had seen through better deceptions than this one. “Mac, please.”

A “please” was rare enough that Mac found herself reluctant not to honour it. She met her friend’s gaze at last, and found her expression startlingly frank and unaffected. 

“I want to fix this,” Phryne said quietly.

Mac folded her arms. “I’m not sure what need fixing,” she replied. “It seems like you’re getting everything you want.”

“But what about you?” Phryne leaned forward, and her earnest expression assumed a hungry cast. “I’m not the only person involved—” here Mac concurred with a dry chuckle “—and my satisfaction is only part of the puzzle. You make it very difficult to know what you want, and I’m afraid all of my usual resources are exhausted. And so I’m _asking_ , Mac,” as if this were some profound concession. “What _do_ you want from me? Whatever it is, I’ll give it.” She ducked her head slightly. “Or I won’t, if that’s what you prefer.”

Mac closed her eyes, briefly. It was Phryne’s blind spot — that anyone could want in a manner different than her own, that a soul might desire some form of fidelity it would never occur to her to give. Phryne’s appreciation for human variety was sincere, as was her respect for those who chose a course unlike her own. But respect was not understanding. 

She opened her eyes and found Phryne’s attention still fast on her face.

“I can take care of myself,” Mac said, at last. Phryne sighed in annoyance and jumped down from the desk. 

Mac, unsure she could withstand a frontal assault, circled back round her desk and sat down. Phryne turned to meet her, leaning in across the desk.

“Honestly, Mac,” she declared. “I wish you wouldn’t be so stubborn. I’m asking you—” and here her voice fell quiet again “—help me know what to do.” 

Mac folded her hands in front of her, on the desk’s solid surface. “You can do whatever you please,” she replied coolly, “which is what you do anyway. I can manage my own affairs, you know that. But have you considered what it will do to Jack?”

Phryne blinked at her.

“Hard enough when it’s the odd stranger passing through town, or some temporary adventure,” Mac continued, warming to her subject. “But how do you think it feels, for a man of his constitution, if there’s someone else who….” And here she left off, for the words had suddenly become difficult.

“Mac. We’re talking about you.” She took hold of the chair opposite the desk, where students and visitors sat, and dragged it round the side. She then seated herself, her face only a few feet from Mac’s own, and looked at her friend intently. “For Heaven’s sake, forget about Jack. Forget about me, even. Is this, you and me—” she twirled her hand in the space between them “—is this something you want?”

It was the most intense of gazes that Phryne had now fastened upon her—the look that likely served her well as a detective, though it had featured in her arsenal as long as Mac had known her. It was a truth serum of its own kind, a weapon to which Phryne resorted only in important moments. She would accept a no, but not any that Mac had to give.

“God help me,” she said, her voice so faint she could barely hear herself, “I do.” 

“I do too,” Phryne replied quietly. “Enough to hunt you up and force you to declare your feelings.” She straightened in her chair, and the intensity of the moment was broken. “And _that,_ my dear,” she continued, “requires a serious commitment.”

Mac chuckled faintly. “Fair enough.”

Phryne smiled at her, briefly, with a melting affection. “Well,” she said, rising from her chair. “That’s the important part settled.”

Mac laughed dryly. “You think so?” But of course she did. Of course she did. Already Mac’s insides quailed at the thought of what she had agreed to, though she hardly knew what it was.

“We both want this— new state of affairs to continue, don’t we?” Phryne said brightly.

“Wanting doesn’t solve anything,” Mac rejoined. How could it, when wanting was the problem? 

“I know that,” replied Phryne, which Mac rather doubted. “I may be ambitious,” she continued, “but I didn’t imagine that we would sort everything out in twenty minutes in your office. Come to dinner tonight, will you? We can talk more then.” She smiled, confident and catlike. “Without fear of being overheard by eager students.”

Was it Phryne’s most seductive smile, or only one of the array over which she held command? Again, Mac felt the net tightening, the pull of the tide she had herself walked directly into.

“I can’t tonight, I’m afraid,” she said. “I’m lecturing for Doctor Peyton tomorrow. He’s traveling to Warrnambool on urgent family business. It’s surgical procedure, which isn’t one of my typical subjects. I need to brush up.”

Phryne nodded. “Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t want to make any mistakes there. Tomorrow night, then.” She spoke with the clear expectation that this would be both acceptable and accepted, a disposition Mac was in no mood to humour.

“Nor tomorrow either,” Mac said quickly. Phryne looked at her, inquiring. “I’ve… made a date for drinks with a friend. I’m on comfort and consolation detail.” This was not true, but it was a serviceable fiction, which was all the moment called for. Better, in fact, than a real obligation, which would fill the evening and crowd her own thoughts out of her head. An undisturbed stretch of time was required before Mac could once again subject herself to such intimate negotiations with so forceful an interlocutor. An evening to mull it over, and to prepare.

Phryne looked at her long, but did not push her further. “Dinner on Friday, then.”

“Friday dinner.”

Phryne paused in the doorway. I’ll look forward to it,” she said softly.

“Me too,” Mac answered. And beneath the pinch of apprehension, it was true: a genuine joy, but not a comforting one.

 

~*~*~*~

 

The hours and days Mac had quarried out for private reflection were instead spent in sedulous avoidance of the main concern. A wise choice it proved, for delivering her to Phryne’s doorstep without qualm or compunction. Standing on that step, freshly aflood with the difficulties of the evening ahead, Mac’s hand paused at the bell. Another sort of evening was yet in reach; a quiet drink at home, or a laughing, crowded turn at the Adventurers Club that left the deeper regions tranquil and undisturbed.

But no. It was the appointed time, and she was here. And it was a gauntlet that must be braved sooner or later—as sure as eggs is eggs, as her mother might have put it. Mac smiled to herself and rang the doorbell. 

“Good evening, Doctor Macmillan,” said Mister Butler. “Please come in. Miss Fisher will be down shortly.”

Once inside, Mac helped herself to some sherry and settled herself on the chaise longue. It had been some weeks since she had found herself in Phryne’s parlour. To be there again was soothing—strangely so, for all its bright busyness. 

“Excuse me, Doctor Macmillan,” came the voice of Mister Butler. “It appears I was mistaken. Miss Fisher is not at home, after all.”

Mac frowned, uncertain. “We had agreed on Friday, hadn’t we?”

“Yes, she put in the order for dinner only this morning. But she is not resting upstairs, as I had believed her to be.”

“Where is she?”

“I’ll do my best to find out,” he replied, and disappeared.

Mac was only briefly permitted to stew in consternation, for Mister Butler had returned hardly a moment later. “I’ve just been informed by Bert that Miss Fisher has gone to Southbank.”

“To Southbank!” Mac exclaimed.

He nodded. “The mother of one of Jane’s friends has gone missing, having last been seen in that district yesterday morning. The girl was quite agitated, and of course Miss Fisher offered at once to help.”

Mac nodded, chuckling. “Of course she did. No knowing when she’ll be back, of course.”

Mister Butler inclined his head. “I’m afraid not, Doctor Macmillan. You are, of course, very welcome to stay. The fish is already in the oven, it won’t cause even the slightest inconvenience.”

“That’s all right, thanks.” If Mac were going to dine alone, she didn’t much fancy doing it here. “I’ll just finish my drink and see myself out.”

“Very good, Doctor Macmillan. I do apologize.”

She waved her hand. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. Have a good night.”

And though it was the butler’s job (Mac reflected, sipping her drink) to apologize for his employers, even by that score there was no apology due. It had always been like Phryne to plot a new course on a moment’s notice, and tonight she was doing so—as she now so frequently did—in service not of her own pleasure or others’, but a public mercy. An impediment to planning, certainly, and occasionally a trial to her friends, but no more just a source of complaint than the rising of the sun. 

Mac was just finishing her sherry when she heard Mister Butler open the door once more. Briefly she wondered whether Phryne had returned home, and chosen for some reason the front door, when came the rumble of a deep, sonorous voice, its syllables obscured but its tenor recognizable.

When Jack Robinson entered the parlour a moment later, Mac met him with two full sherry glasses. 

“Evening, Doctor,” said the Inspector, accepting one of them.

“Evening, Inspector,” she replied. “Just me, I’m afraid.” A stock phrase, but the near-truth of it caught at the edge of her mind, for in the unsettled state of mind she had borne with her to Wardlow that evening, it did require some courage to face him. Their conversation earlier in the week had left her no wiser as to how he might feel about the new turn in her own relationship with Phryne. But the sherry warmed her mettle as well as her tongue, and the prospect of another was as good as courage.

“We were meant to have dinner, Phryne and I,” Mac explained. “But she’s gone haring off on some kind of mission for Jane. A friend’s mother gone missing, I think Mister Butler said.”

He nodded. “Not surprising. It’s the sort of thing she does, isn’t it?”

“Yes it is.” Mac resumed her seat on the chaise longue, and Jack took the seat opposite. “What brings you here this evening?”

“Oh.” Inspector Robinson seemed slightly surprised, though not displeased, to be summoned for conversation. “Collins and I were interviewing robbery victims a few streets over. He’s gone back to the station to check their statements against the time line of the other heists, but that’s a one-man job. There’s nothing else I can do ’til morning.”

“So you came here,” Mac supplied.

“So I came here.” He had perched on the very edge of his chair, Mac noticed. Her own extravagant comfort in this room, she now considered, combined with the fact that it was she and not he who had held prior plans with Phryne, might leave him discomfited. How strange a thing, to have the upper hand in this way. She discovered that she didn’t want it, and cast about for a way to set him at ease.

“That’s quite a nice hat,” she remarked at last.

The Inspector removed the hat from his head to examine it, though Mac felt perfectly confident that he knew exactly which hat it was. 

“Miss Fisher gave it to me,” he said in answer, and passed it to her that she might also inspect it. “Its predecessor died an untimely death on a case last month.”

“And how’s that?” Mac asked. It was a fine wool specimen, the band just a touch wider than she had realized. “Blown away in a car chase?”

“Fatal gunshot wound,” he replied mildly.

That surprised a laugh out of her. “You do lead an exciting life,” she said, returning the hat.

“More exciting when Miss Fisher is around,” he replied. “Although in this case—” he paused, seemed to catch himself fiddling with the brim, and set it down upon the side table “—she was also the restorer of order.”

“And took her chance to intervene in your wardrobe.”

“She does like to have things her way,” the Inspector allowed.

Mac chuckled dryly. “She always has.”

It was a comfortable silence that followed, and Mac was struck anew by the easy simplicity of Jack’s company. It seemed, all at once, quite obvious—the simplest of things—that he and she would find a peace of some kind as regarded Phryne. What sort of peace it might be, Mac could hardly imagine—but then, she could barely imagine what sort of arrangement she herself might arrive at with Phryne, what sort of base object it would be that she and Jack would then need to build around. 

Hardly could she have imagined, even a week ago, that such uncertainty would offer its own comforts. But there was a strange, perverse peace in it, all the old fixities falling away. It was, Mac supposed, the refuge of the defeated. And had ever a soldier been more thoroughly routed than she? Though whether she had lost in victory, or been victorious in defeat, she could hardly say. 

“You know,” she said, as the reverie broke, “mine is from the same shop.”

“Is it really?”

She nodded. “And it’s more a coincidence than you know. It was Phryne who brought me, to give cover for a case.”

“Huh.” Jack took a sip of sherry. “Was this recently, or before the war?”

“Oh, just a few months ago.” It had been shortly before Professor Katz’s murder, at a moment—Mac now realized—when Phryne and Jack would not have been on speaking terms. But there was little point in recalling now that unfortunate period. “This interest in crime is new, you know. But it’s true that Phryne’s always been a problem solver.” Mac chuckled. “All things considered, it’s amazing she didn’t begin sooner.”

Jack was silent a moment, observing the movement of sherry in his glass. Mac, for whom such a gesture often presaged a comment still gathering, waiting patiently. 

“She hasn’t told me much of her life before her return to Melbourne,” he said at last.

“Oh, no?”

“Almost nothing, in fact.” He drained his glass, and continued to stare at it. “She’s told me a bit about Janey, but only things that were relevant to the investigation. It was the same with the French painter she was involved with.”

“Rene.” Mac shivered at the recollection. “He was dreadful. I only met him a few times, but it was enough.” Mac had met Dubois in Paris, shortly after he and Phryne became an item, and has disliked him intensely upon contact. Phryne had not much cared to hear criticism, in those early weeks, and she and Mac had seen each other only a few times more before Mac returned to Australia. They had made it up by letter a few months later, once Phryne had shaken free from his spell, but it was not a pleasant memory. 

Mac took note of her own silence and looked up at the Inspector, who was watching her calmly and patiently. “There’s a great deal about her I don’t know,” he said.

Mac liked him enough to tell him the truth. “You probably never will know most of it.”

“Yes.” The Inspector nodded absently, as if he were learning and agreeing at the same time. 

Mac’s glass was empty, and she imagined Jack could use another as well, so she fetched the decanter and topped them both up.

“Is it hard?” Mac heard herself ask, into the silence. He looked at her, waiting. “To, ah— care for someone, when you know so little of them.”

He gave her a very penetrating stare, then returned his eyes to his glass. “Phryne Fisher does not belong to me,” he said at last, slowly.

All his quiet intensity was ablaze, and Mac’s heart surged in compassion, and in recognition. “No,” she replied, in a soft voice.

His eyes snapped up to meet hers, and she held them until the squeeze of her heart demanded some sherry. She drained her glass and set it down on the table. The Inspector threw back the rest of his own drink and relinquished his glass to stand beside hers. Mac tipped her head, as much startled as impressed. She had never doubted his capacities, but Inspector Robinson had always struck her as more the sipping type.

“I love Miss Fisher for what she is,” he said, again in a slow voice, as if reading out of his notebook. He picked up his glass and turned it about in his hand, then looked up at her. “And that means sharing her with the world.”

“That seems a very wise way to go about it,” Mac said gently.

His gaze was resolute. “That includes you, Doctor Macmillan.”

The two-edged sword. He had, it seemed, understood her perfectly after all.

“You’re a clever one.” 

“I am a detective, Doctor Macmillan.” He tipped his head. “On the other hand, it is helpful to be told directly.”

Mac chuckled, an outward gesture to mask her own chagrin. She had underestimated Phryne, who in all her glittering self-assurance had never once been so dazzled by her own brightness as to forget the plight of others. Phryne, who had saved lives and transformed hearts and never once, that Mac had known, broken her word. She had been unjust to Phryne, in spite of—because of—her own attachment. It was, perhaps, not the first time.

“It helps to be told,” she said at last.

“Yes it does.”

She picked up her empty glass and set it down again. “It isn’t easy,” she said, “to—” and the word caught in her throat, but it was the only true word, and she wished very badly to tell him the truth “—to love somebody who doesn’t come home every night.”

Jack nodded. “Though I suppose that depends on your definition,” he said a moment later, leaning back to take in the room. “If there’s one thing we know about Miss Fisher, it’s that she’ll always keep her own home.”

Mac laughed. “We do know that.” 

And where else but in this very parlour, in all its gorgeous florid absurdity, could such a conversation as this ever take place? Mac picked up the decanter, ever full, and poured them each another glass. 

“I do like you, Jack Robinson,” she said.

“And I quite like you, Doctor Macmillan.”

Urgent panic struck her. “But not, in, ah—”

“Of course not.” He frowned, as if perplexed that such a thing need be said. “We’re both monogamists, you and I, I think.”

She thought of Sybylla, and of Clara, and of all the laughing eyes and white arms in which she had taken pleasure and comfort in the past few months, since Daisy died. There had been so many girls. So many, and yet none. Well, one. 

“At least in practice,” he added. 

Only because she understood him so well could she hear the gentle invitation at the end of that sentence. But there, at last, was a well too deep. Little inclined she was, as much as she liked him, to tell him all of her struggles and trials of the heart: of the peculiarly mixed pain of Daisy’s death, of the anguish she felt when she first realized so many years ago that Phryne Fisher was not a bird to be caught, of the hopes for herself that had seemed to die upon realizing that the great love of her life would never be hers alone. It had seemed so final, then: a door not only shut but boarded up, mortared over. But now it seemed the light was shining in. Her eyes needed to adjust.

Perhaps she would talk of it, in time, on another evening. Perhaps in this very parlor. There would be more such evenings, of this she felt sure.

And so she only nodded.

He seemed to accept this, and they sat a moment in companionable silence until Mister Butler appeared in the doorway.

“Pardon me, Doctor Macmillan, Inspector Robinson,” said he. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to inform you that dinner is ready.” He hesitated, and then continued: “I’ve prepared sea bass at Miss Fisher’s request, which I’m afraid does not keep its texture well. It will be best eaten tonight.”

“Do you know when Miss Fisher will return?” Asked Jack. He had, Mac noticed, put his hat back on his head.

“I’m afraid not,” Mister Butler replied. “But I have prepared a meal for two.”

Mac looked at Jack. “What do you say, Inspector?”

The Inspector sat still, in a manner Mac had come to recognize as quiet consideration.

“You can even keep your hat on,” she added, “since it’s just me.”

He met her gaze and nodded slightly. “Best to follow the rules of the house, I think, even when the mistress isn’t home.”

“Fair enough,” she conceded. They stood, and Mac removed her own hat and handed it to Mister Butler, who had stepped forward to collect the Inspector’s.

Jack gestured to the other room. “Dinner for two?”

Mac smiled in return. “Dinner for two.”

Together, they followed Mister Butler into the dining room.

 

~*~*~*~

**Author's Note:**

> The voice for this fic was significantly inspired by the fabulous _[My Brilliant Career](http://archive.org/stream/mybrilliantcaree11620gut/11620.txt),_ an Australian classic (and justly so) published in 1901 by a very young Miles Franklin, who would go on to be a leading feminist and supporter of Australian literature. I have nodded to Franklin's narrator-protagonist Sybylla (largely modeled on herself) by bestowing her name on one of Mac's side-pieces--which, I dunno, seems like a pretty good prize to me.


End file.
